Comments on: Comments with attention?

Comments with attention?

nthdegx — Tue, 25 Oct 2005 14:57:05 -0800

The ability to mark a comment for another user's attention: any use?

By: scarabic

scarabic — Tue, 25 Oct 2005 15:01:36 -0800

Only for users who don't publish their email addresses.

By: RustyBrooks

RustyBrooks — Tue, 25 Oct 2005 15:11:38 -0800

It could be useful. I like the idea in an abstract sense "Hey, I bet nthdegx would like to see this". But in practice... well, maybe not.

By: cortex

cortex — Tue, 25 Oct 2005 15:35:40 -0800

I can imagine a few small uses, but I don't see it actually breaking the usefulness threshold.

By: Gyan

Gyan — Tue, 25 Oct 2005 15:36:41 -0800

This particular feature would be limiting. A Plastic-like private messaging system would be better. To prevent abuse and overuse, there should be no long-term storage & limited message length.

By: fire&wings

fire&wings — Tue, 25 Oct 2005 15:37:14 -0800

Some sort of general private messaging/flagging feature would be great, but one feels that it's a pony too far.

By: smackfu

smackfu — Tue, 25 Oct 2005 15:37:57 -0800

I would flag every one of my comments for the attention of my hated enemies, whoever they may be.

By: cedar

cedar — Tue, 25 Oct 2005 15:39:18 -0800

I don't know -- it seems awfully close to the personal messaging feature of most common forum software.

For me part of MeFis charm has always been the flat minimalist IA and, while I'm sure I'm in the minority here, I believe that there is such a thing as too many features.

As nice and pretty as the ponies are it seems to me that an entire herd of them would, at a certain point, generate so much crap that the cleaning chores would quickly become burdensome.

By: Tuwa

Tuwa — Tue, 25 Oct 2005 15:39:49 -0800

prediction: Drama would shoot way up, as it would suddenly be trivial to pass along "did you see what he said?" type guff. /prediction

By: mr_crash_davis

mr_crash_davis — Tue, 25 Oct 2005 15:48:32 -0800

I would send every comment about Depeche Mode or the Smiths to jonmc, just to piss him off.

By: jonmc

jonmc — Tue, 25 Oct 2005 15:50:32 -0800

Yes, but I'd see they were from you, so I'd assume they were musical love letters.

(I kid. I'm a kidder)

By: mr_crash_davis

mr_crash_davis — Tue, 25 Oct 2005 15:52:43 -0800

If I were going to send you a musical love letter, it would be more like "Does the Chewing Gum Lose Its Flavor" or "Dead Skunk", but that's all right.

By: fenriq

fenriq — Tue, 25 Oct 2005 16:27:19 -0800

It would get abused very, very badly very, very quickly. And that abuse would kill the site (and the site dies on me often enough as it is now).

See mr_crash_davis's comment above for a hint about how bad it would get.

By: blue_beetle

blue_beetle — Tue, 25 Oct 2005 17:19:55 -0800

I would flag all the posts for my own attention, and then ignore them.

By: Eideteker

Eideteker — Tue, 25 Oct 2005 18:01:49 -0800

It would certainly get quonsar to leave the site again. I imagine he and several other people would be literally deluged with noise. Only figuratively.

By: ikkyu2

ikkyu2 — Tue, 25 Oct 2005 20:28:42 -0800

Please don't do this. It could in theory make me liable for errors of omission ("Is it not your customary role, Dr. Ikkyu2, to serve as medical advisor to the MetaFilter community?! And did you somehow NOT see the alert directed SPECIFICALLY at you, and then proceed to WITHHOLD your advice in the case of this CLEAR MEDICAL EMERGENCY?! Gentlemen of the jury: Did ikkyu2 not even THINK of the CHILDREN?! You heartless bastard..") and I'd have to quit logging in here.

By: cortex

cortex — Tue, 25 Oct 2005 20:45:56 -0800

plus i don't think i could handle all the love letters

By: dreamsign

dreamsign — Tue, 25 Oct 2005 21:41:22 -0800

I would flag every one of my comments for the attention of my hated enemies, whoever they may be.

Yeah, this kind of thing is pretty much the first idea that leapt to mind.

Don't.

By: taz

taz — Tue, 25 Oct 2005 21:54:16 -0800

Would somebody please tell ikkyu2 that my elbow is bothering me again?

By: jack_mo

jack_mo — Wed, 26 Oct 2005 04:15:52 -0800

Not such a good idea for comments, for the reasons others have suggested, but the ability to mark a post for the attention of another user might be nice.

The for:username tag on del.icio.us springs to mind - it would be goog if we could add a for:username tag to a given post, which would be hidden from general view but would make the front page show something like There have been 3 links and 17 comments posted since your last visit, and 2 links have been recommended to you by other users' when our pal Mr. Username next stopped by. It could be tied into the contacts feature, too, so you could choose to show only recommendations from contacts.

By: peacay

peacay — Wed, 26 Oct 2005 05:24:02 -0800

e m a i l

By: sveskemus

sveskemus — Wed, 26 Oct 2005 06:07:30 -0800

Yeah, what's wrong with email?

By: Gyan

Gyan — Wed, 26 Oct 2005 11:10:47 -0800

Not everyone provides one; you can't be sure about who the sender is; spam blockers might block it; email may have changed without the user changing it in their profile.

Note that I'm advocating a system that has low potential for abuse:

1)limited message length (no chatty messages)
2)no long-term storage (messages get deleted 3 days after you read it first)
3)no embedded objects, including images (no musical love letters)
4)maybe, no HTML either (want to send a link, paste the URL)
5)if necessary, qouta on number of messages in your msgbox at any one time.

By: kindall

kindall — Wed, 26 Oct 2005 14:03:45 -0800

Not everyone provides [an e-mail address]

So basically, you think that people who have expressed their preference not to be contacted privately, by omitting an e-mail address in their profile, would welcome being contacted privately? Sounds dubious to me, man...

By: Gyan

Gyan — Wed, 26 Oct 2005 15:46:43 -0800

kindall : "So basically, you think that people who have expressed their preference not to be contacted privately, by omitting an e-mail address in their profile, would welcome being contacted privately?"

They have as much obligation to acknowledge an unwelcome PM as an unwelcome email. I'm not advocating that the sender be made aware if the receiver has read the PM, unlike vBulletin and Plastic's setup.

By: ikkyu2

ikkyu2 — Thu, 27 Oct 2005 18:41:22 -0800

taz: take two aspirin and flag your post to my attention in the morning.