MetaTalk

MeFiCoFo Financial Update, May 11, 2026

MeFiBoard — Sun, 10 May 2026 18:24:55 GMT

April income was down from March (-26%). Expenses were down 15%, resulting in a loss ~$2K loss. This was a four deposit month (last month was five), so much of this was to be expected based on our deposit cadence. Relative to our projected budget, we did okay, but our budget projected small increases each month from donation income, which we did not see, so careful management of this will be necessary. The P&L can be found here. Last month's update is here.

Income

Google AdSense income rebounded 'sharply' (month-over-month) - effectively doubling. This is good news, but not supported by any data/insight (meaning we don't know why it happened or if it can be sustained). Given the variance and potential upside (this was a bigger number than I thought we would be seeing from current trends), I'll put this on the board agenda as an item to review (can we find a community member who has specific expertise, etc.). Amazon referral income was in line with our recent monthly average.
Donation income was down to not quite Feburary levels (which was the most recent four deposit month). Our MRR in Stripe drifted down. The April weekly average compared to March was also down a small amount, but up relative to the weekly average in February. The variances across these periods is less than 10% (and I understand that 10% isn't a rounding error, but our revenue is highly dependent on when people signed up and at what levels and we don't have any models that show what should be expected based on past data).
We are going start looking into deeper dive into giving data this month with a community volunteer.

Expenses

The April period reflects our new scheduling budget (down about 15%). I erroneously stated last month that the onboarding/training costs would be in this update, but since we moved to paying contractors on the 1st of the following month, everything lags (which is compounded by the fact that we title these posts when they occur, which is the subsequent to the reporting period). The additional expenses were in the April period but paid on May 1, so they will be part of the June reporting (so mod expense will be up about 15% in the next period and return the level in this report after that).
AWS spend has been in line with our costs over the past ~9 months.
Included in Other this month was a tax payment to the state of Delaware.
Included in Other this month is honoraria payments for the BIPOC Board members.

Cash Position:

Our net change in cash in March was down $1,900 (consistent with the loss shown on the P&L). Our cash reserves are $101K (Note the numbers are rounded).
Previously I was giving a 'runway' number but month to month variance really reduces the value of that—folks are free to make their own estimates with the data we have (the simplest math is that we have ~25 months of runway, but this would vary based on how conservative you project future revenue).

COMMENTARY

Here is the QuickBooks P&L. We are going to continue with dual reporting (Google Sheets and QB) for a few more months. The time commitment isn't significant and I may revise the process a little, but I think the Google Sheets P&L is going to be a permanent thing - it's a compact view, captures budget performance all in one view and I really don't think I can make something in QB that matches or improves on it (for fans of reporting details, what will change is I will just take the QB values as an export and plug them into the Sheets P&L - currently, I do a manual monthly register off our checking account and compare that to the QB automated import - we've been spot on for four months now, but I still find one or two edge cases each month, so my inherently cautious nature about this stuff means I'm happy to keep testing it).
The reconciliation from last year still pending.
A couple members have pointed out that given our cash position, a high-yield savings account would be a smart option. One of our current banking relationships has a 3.5% money market option, and we have established the account and are in the process of funding it. Kudos to members pwnguin and rrrrrrrrrt for keeping me honest on getting this done.

How did I find this page? (Admin suggested posting to MeTa)

tzikeh — Sat, 09 May 2026 16:12:56 GMT

Hi - I found this link (https://thomaswc.com/2025.html) on April 29. I was just trying to track down where I found it. In my browser history, the site I visited directly before I went to that link was MetaFilter. I see it was posted here in December. (https://www.metafilter.com/211620/A-different-kind-of-end-of-year-puzzle-for-2025) But I have no idea how I found that page....

....and I distinctly remember that, in the post where I saw the original link, there was a comment from someone who had modded the game and allowed it to go on indefinitely. I don't see that comment anywhere on the MetaFilter post. So I'd like to ask for help finding how I got to that MetaFilter post, or if anyone happened to know where the post with the modding is. (Before anyone suggests moving this to AskMe, I asked the mods where it would fit best, here or AskMe, and they said I'd probably get better responses in MeTa.)

CanCon on the Blue

tinydancer — Thu, 07 May 2026 17:50:44 GMT

I just wanted to express my appreciation for the steady stream of Canada-related posts on the Blue. Shout out to Kitteh and mrjohnmuller as the two posters I recognize the most. But I'm sure there are others as well.

For some reason this feels like a recent development, though I do not have any stats, just going off vibes. Well, whether there is actually a conscious effort to increase these types of posts or not, this Canadian likes it very much, and I hope others do, too! Thank you again

I think that something in the back end is broken

ashbury — Thu, 07 May 2026 01:19:31 GMT

Over the last three days or so, maybe more, the site has been sporadically unavailable to me in safari on an iPad and I've had comments that didn't post. Anecdotally, I'm seeing others having similar problems, for example here. I'm pretty sure that chavenet mentioned that he double posted because the first one didn't take.

suggestion: book series on fanfare

adamrice — Sun, 03 May 2026 22:42:26 GMT

I see that this was requested before and received a favorable response, but that was nearly 8 years ago, so I'm going to suggest it again: add a field to "book" posts on Fanfare to indicate the series the book is a part of, if applicable.

celebrating jessamyn

HearHere — Sun, 03 May 2026 07:47:12 GMT

being reminded recently of how much jessamyn participated in the growth of metafilter, i thought it could be good to create a place where people could share their appreciation. metafilter's transformation into an organization led by a democratically-elected board of directors required effort from many, many people. i am proud of you all, happy to be a part of this community. for this moment, i think it could be nice to specifically acknowledge jessamyn. thank you

r/metafilter: Is it time to take it back?

plagued out moggies — Fri, 24 Apr 2026 16:07:33 GMT

r/metafilter is our "official" outpost on Reddit. Is it time for the community to take it back?

r/metafilter is an embarrassment. It is run by multiple former owners of Metafilter (Jessamyn and Rhaomi), is an abysmal failure of engagement by modern web standards, and pretty much just screams "::emoji:: ::emoji:: we don't know how the internet works". Is there any reason the community hasn't decided to reclaim this space and actually make something good of it, or at the very least stopped making it so actively bad, so as not to drive away potential new members here?

MeFiCoFo Financial Update, April 22, 2026

MeFiBoard — Wed, 22 Apr 2026 20:22:04 GMT

March income was up from February (15%). Expenses were down 15%, resulting in a break even month. This was a five deposit month, so our weekly average was higher. That means having a break even month isn't great (ideally we should register about a 10% 'profit' in these months). The P&L can be found here (see note below). Last month's update is here.

Income

Google AdSense income has declined again MoM (month-over-month) - we are basically at the lowest point for AdSense. No internal review or discussion on this item (note that the change is about ~$100 - even a big drop is relatively small to our overall revenue picture at this point). Amazon referral income looks up because of the calendar we got two deposits in one month. But the average per period is in line with the past 12 months on average.
Donation income was up because it was a five deposit month. Our MRR in Stripe rebounded a little. We revised our deposit schedule so that all our money comes in weekly on Mondays, so we can project monthly income better. It's not perfect, because year over year numbers aren't relevant yet (because from what we can tell, there weren't dependable / scheduled transfers until mid-year 2025). But from the data as of this writing, April is underperforming about 10% (this is also a little suspect to project - the data is going to be based on pretty arbitrary sign up periods; it would be great if our income came in at $YEAR/52, but it hasn't worked like that).

Expenses

This is the first month where we would see some savings relative to the previously announced scheduling changes, but we incurred additional costs due to staffing decisions. We will see some additional expense relative to budget as a consequence of this (additional shifts for onboarding/training) in the April period. No other funds have been used to remunerate board, committee or volunteer support in this period (note this excludes the spend that was announced in this Meta - for reporting purposes, this spend is 'mod expense')
AWS spend has been in line with our costs over the past ~9 months.

Cash Position:

Our net change in cash in March was down $100 (consistent with the loss shown on the P&L) Our cash reserves are $103K (Note the numbers are rounded).
Previously I was giving a 'runway' number but month to month variance really reduces the value of that—folks are free to make their own estimates with the data we have (the simplest math is that we have ~25 months of runway, but this would vary based on how conservative you project future revenue).

TAX UPDATE The State of Delaware payment was executed. Tax Year 2025 is wrapped up. COMMENTARY

Here is the QuickBooks P&L. Per last month's note, we are going to run this alongside the manual P&L for another 2-3 months, and then sunset the Google Sheet in favor of reporting directly from QuickBooks. The reconciliation from last year still has not moved forward, but hopefully I can find some time in April to work through the backlog.
We've added a performance against budget section at the bottom of the P&L (the Budget tab is still there). Jan & Feb were basically just zeroed out because I was updating the number as we moved forward (meaning there was no budget number to compare against). Now that we have an approved budget, each period update will show if we are on track.

Financial Controls handover

Transition from the Interim Board is 95% complete. PayPal still needs some cleanup, but otherwise we can confirm that the new board has signatory authority and is the primary or only contact point (this is a reprint from last update).
We are starting the process to do some giving analysis (working with a member who has stepped up to try to wrangle our multiple data sources into something useful).
GitHub was resolved as the last stray payment account we're aware of that needed to be transitioned. It now goes through checking and gets captured in our expenses.

HOW YOU CAN HELP If you are giving currently, or have considered restarting a previous donation, our recommendation is that you consider migrating from monthly to quarterly if you are giving at the $5 or $10 monthly level, and that you do it via Stripe (there is a more detailed discussion on this in the December 2025 update). We have finalized the changes to the payment schedule for Stripe and approved the donation page. This has been forwarded to frimble and is in the queue for update (we don't have a projected date mostly because I don't know what is required to test the Stripe changes). Lastly, these updates have typically posted in the third week of the month, covering the previous period. With our reporting and controls stuff settled, I'm targeting moving this up to the first week of the month. The main reason we're a little late with this one was me being down with COVID earlier in the month. This post was authored by 99_, and reviewed and approved by the entire board (for a detailed conversation about the "Board Account" please see this Meta)

Mefites running for office

saladin — Tue, 21 Apr 2026 17:35:16 GMT

As another U.S. election season approaches, I'll update my question from eight years ago and ask again: are any Mefites running for election this season??

Display Error on Front Page

Bottlecap — Wed, 15 Apr 2026 19:56:24 GMT

In classic view on iOS the text of fpp is overflowing to the right of the screen with no ability to scroll or resize the window. I have sent a contact form message about this and received no response. Modern is not a viable replacement for those of us with low vision, this is an accessibility issue. I have a suspicion that the side bar was removed (because of the post below this one) and that caused the issue. But, obviously, I can not verify that is the case. Nor can I read more than the first half of a sentence on any of the lovely fpps.

iOS on an old SE, up to date on version. Problem seems to only exist on the blue, although I only checked ask, fanfare and metatalk. I would love for text to go back to wrapping normally, but would settle for a horizontal scroll. If using the contact form had worked I wouldn't be making this post.

Best of: Inbox Edition

MeFiBoard — Sun, 12 Apr 2026 19:11:39 GMT

MetaFilter's new newsletter, Best of: Inbox Edition, is launching this month!

Promising "the best of the blue and the green, with stops in-between; key announcements; greatest hits both past and present; and subscriber-only content," this email newsletter will go out once per month. The first newsletter will hit subscriber inboxes this April. Tell your friends! Tell your family! Tell your followers! Our hope is that Best of: Inbox Edition will bring you good stuff you might've missed, resurface old favorites, and deliver straight to your inbox the "oh wow, I'm glad I clicked that" experience that makes MetaFilter special. It's also easy to forward or share with folks when you want to say "Here's that place I was telling you about." Archives will be publicly available from the subscription page for those who wish to read but not subscribe. Signup now to get in on the 1st mailing!

Link between hip pain and why dogs kick?

Zumbador — Wed, 08 Apr 2026 12:16:27 GMT

I am pretty sure there was an Ask in the last three years or so: someone asked for help with hip pain (I think? Some kind of body pain), and an answer suggested a massage point that triggered the same reflex as why dogs kick when you scratch them near their chest? And rubbing / massaging that place triggers a similar relflex in humans, meaning a deep muscle release happens? But I cannot find this ask...

hide away

HearHere — Sun, 05 Apr 2026 11:11:54 GMT

previously)

where clicking ⯈ opens up more text

see below

click me