January 18, 2006

2:26 AM

This thread is alternating "Mark as best answer"... marks.
My newly posted comment was instantly marked. And while it made me feel warm and fuzzy inside, the obvious "every other" pattern is a clear bug.
posted by disillusioned to bugs at 2:26 AM (53 comments total)

Upon a quick, cursory review, the phenomenon is not limited to that thread.

It appears as if all comments across the site are alternating their bgcolor.
posted by disillusioned at 2:28 AM on January 18, 2006

I was wondering why there were so many best answers tonight - I do like the alternating rows, makes it easier to skip stuff. Maybe a faint border for "best answers?"
posted by muddylemon at 2:29 AM on January 18, 2006

Kay, so it pays to read the damn site.

Obviously this is temporary, and at the very least, not intended for AskMeFi, unless you intend on shifting everyone's "best answer" paradigm wholly without a clutch, throwing us into anime-induced spasms, etc, etc.

Feel free to kill this thread, naturally. (Although it may help to keep it up so others don't feel the need to report it.)
posted by disillusioned at 2:33 AM on January 18, 2006

yeah - just read that one too. whoops.
posted by muddylemon at 2:34 AM on January 18, 2006

It's giving me flashbacks to tractor feed paper with alternating green and white stripes.
posted by fixedgear at 2:38 AM on January 18, 2006

Hah! The first time I read AskMe this morning I was rather bemused as to why the asker had gone loopy on the Best Answer function. Having said that, at least on my setup the actual Best Answers are a different shade of green.

It's only when something like this happens that I realise how much I fear change.
posted by Hartster at 3:06 AM on January 18, 2006

Ding ding ding! We have a winner! Well, almost anyway. Near enough's good enough, right?
posted by dg at 3:10 AM on January 18, 2006

The alternating shades are kinda cool, but I agree it's confusing with best answers. Perhaps best answers should have the diagonal striated background like the header background seen at the top of the page?
posted by todbot at 3:27 AM on January 18, 2006

I'd just like to say that all of the answers in that thread are best. But, this is the bestest.
posted by found missing at 4:04 AM on January 18, 2006

I don't like the alternating colors at all. From a design stand-point , it just isn't a good idea. Visually I never had a problem reading down the page, but this is very unnecessary and distracting.
posted by dgaicun at 4:50 AM on January 18, 2006

Agreed. I find it harder to read and harder to skim.
posted by fuzz at 5:05 AM on January 18, 2006

I hate the alternating colors.
posted by killdevil at 5:08 AM on January 18, 2006

... put me in the "hate" column, too.

Maybe if it extended across the entire width of the page??

(but I'd still hate it...)
posted by jpburns at 5:38 AM on January 18, 2006

Hate column for me.
posted by Frasermoo at 5:42 AM on January 18, 2006

Hāt.
posted by grouse at 6:11 AM on January 18, 2006

No sir. I don't like it.
posted by ColdChef at 6:21 AM on January 18, 2006

I'm with the haters.
posted by mr_crash_davis at 6:24 AM on January 18, 2006

I hate the alternative colors too.
posted by XQUZYPHYR at 6:26 AM on January 18, 2006

Alternating, I mean.
posted by XQUZYPHYR at 6:26 AM on January 18, 2006

HATE!
posted by Stynxno at 6:35 AM on January 18, 2006

Thank the jerks who decided to game the site by making fake comments-within-a-comment.

Really - thank them. If not for their "fun," you wouldn't be seeing this.
posted by Kirth Gerson at 6:36 AM on January 18, 2006

Nah, I'll thank the people who complained about it. This was never a real issue, and Matt has already done enough to counteract it without this.
posted by grouse at 6:39 AM on January 18, 2006

I hate the alternating colours as well. It seems to highlight half the comments, giving them uneven importance. YuckYuckYuck. Please remove it!
posted by raedyn at 6:39 AM on January 18, 2006

I like it.
posted by monju_bosatsu at 6:40 AM on January 18, 2006

Kirth, I don't think that's true. Matt had mentioned trying out the alternating colors in other discussions. I'm off to work or I'd search out the comments, but I'm almost positive it's come up in other contexts as something he wanted to test out.
posted by mediareport at 6:40 AM on January 18, 2006

Nah, I'll thank the people who complained about it.

Yeah, me too. There was never a problem except in the minds of anal-retentive types who can't bear a moment's confusion. And the solution looks awful.
posted by languagehat at 6:46 AM on January 18, 2006

I like the idea. Sometimes it's difficult to parse comments, especially when people use line breaks. But... it's not quite there. I agree with jpburns: Maybe iff the bgcolor extended to the page edge?

(oh, and look at that little check spelling link. Matt has been a busy beedog).
posted by Popular Ethics at 6:47 AM on January 18, 2006

Finally, thanks.
posted by Rothko at 6:54 AM on January 18, 2006

I think the alternating colors look great. (But then I may be biased.)
posted by kirkaracha at 6:56 AM on January 18, 2006

I wonder if the colours could be a bit more subtle.
posted by riffola at 7:01 AM on January 18, 2006

This is horrible. I hope this is undone soon, but until then I guess I'll have to use this quick fix.
posted by ducksauce at 7:05 AM on January 18, 2006

As long as we're voting, I like it. On MeTa it's not as big of a problem scanning through threads because the yellow stands out but on the blue, it looks great and makes it far easier to read.
posted by panoptican at 7:10 AM on January 18, 2006

I like it. I prefer the way it is done on Sportsfilter though.
posted by terrapin at 7:14 AM on January 18, 2006

Yes, I'm with terrapin. I do like it but the implementation here is a little off though I guess you already knew that.
posted by panoptican at 7:18 AM on January 18, 2006

Firmly on the hatin' side.
posted by cortex at 7:35 AM on January 18, 2006

This is seriously horrible. It really wrecks the flow of the page, and when combined with extra-highlighting for Best Answers, it's plain nutty. Please un-do.
posted by rxrfrx at 7:36 AM on January 18, 2006

Put me in the communist and paedophile camp.
posted by KevinSkomsvold at 7:52 AM on January 18, 2006

hate.
posted by Baby_Balrog at 7:53 AM on January 18, 2006

Visually distracting, suggests importance where none exists, conflicts with existing use in AskMeFi.

If there really is a problem, wouldn't a subtle separator between posts be a better solution?
posted by Armitage Shanks at 7:56 AM on January 18, 2006

Or a small indicator to the left of each post.
posted by NinjaPirate at 8:00 AM on January 18, 2006

Not a fan of the alternating color blocks. They might be less distracting if they went all the way to the edge of the screen, but as is, they're hard to visually ignore.

It seems that the problem is that you want to distinguish where each post begins so that it can't be spoofed, right? What about just a dot or something on the left hand side, outside the post area, marking the start of each post?
posted by Caviar at 8:04 AM on January 18, 2006

Also, maybe something to remind people to read the previous posts on preview.
posted by Caviar at 8:05 AM on January 18, 2006

Me no likey the stripey.

Though, if I type this quick enough i'll get a highlighted row and i'll be more important!
posted by tpl1212 at 8:05 AM on January 18, 2006

Yes! Score!
posted by tpl1212 at 8:05 AM on January 18, 2006

Please turn off the stripes. I feel like I'm staring at an optical illusion.

So yeah, hate.
posted by bshort at 8:06 AM on January 18, 2006

Kevin Drum's blog uses a subtle dotted line. Personally though, I think there is no reason for any kind of additional comment divider, as I have never had any kind of problem with readability here until now!
posted by dgaicun at 8:11 AM on January 18, 2006

The stripes make me sort of queasy. Unless this is fixing a different problem than the non-problem comment spoof, it seems like overkill. Maybe this would be a possible ajax-y "check for comment spoofing" button you could press to make the alternating comments show, just to check (though why anyone can't just check the timezones is beyond me)? I understand that keeping the site free of malicious fuckery is important, but this seems sort of like a solution in search of a problem. Unless there's lots of people who love it that haven't spoken up?
posted by jessamyn at 8:11 AM on January 18, 2006

Hate. Noise.
posted by dame at 8:13 AM on January 18, 2006

I don't dislike the color blocks, except for in AskMetaFilter. Of course, I don't think we need them either, particularly in AskMe, as the sort of joke that brought these on -- well, I don't remember seeing it rearing its head in the Green. You can tell the difference between the alternating color blocks and a "best answer" if the two are right next to each other (best answer is brighter), but unless they are adjacent, I have a hard time seeing the difference.
posted by .kobayashi. at 8:14 AM on January 18, 2006

fine, I'll remove them.

Interesting that a previous use seemed to influence reactions somewhat "every other comment on metafilter is marked as best!" I was just trying out a request from sportsfilter, where it seems to work pretty well, but then the separation is nicely done over there and the widths are a bit wider. This was a quick hack.
posted by mathowie at 8:15 AM on January 18, 2006

Matt - You were right the first time. This was a non-problem. The "fat-look" inducing stripes however are very bad.
posted by y6y6y6 at 8:16 AM on January 18, 2006

Nevermind................
posted by y6y6y6 at 8:17 AM on January 18, 2006

I agree with some others that I like SportsFilter's method of striping a lot better. Not sure why it looks better, but it is.
Also, thanks for the link, ducksauce. I can see again!
posted by jmd82 at 8:20 AM on January 18, 2006