Post editor pony request

June 5, 2006 9:21 AM

Post editor pony request: a method to shove part of long posts into the first comment, after the post has gone up.
posted by anotherpanacea to Feature Requests at 9:21 AM (16 comments total)

I'm not talking about a true edit (since this can lead to all sorts of trouble) but just a way for overzealous posters to make the front page post shorter without losing content. I've seen a number of great front page posts get shitty comments because they were too long, and the two paragraph principle sometimes fails because people have no idea how long a paragraph is supposed to be.

This would also make the front page prettier without sacrificing accountability.
posted by anotherpanacea at 9:21 AM on June 5, 2006

Examples: Here. Here. Here. Here.
posted by anotherpanacea at 9:26 AM on June 5, 2006

Often people will flag these and we can scoot the more to inside. This is easy to do in AskMe, a bit more of a hassle in MeFi. Sometimes I'll email the poster and say "hey do you want me to move that around for you?" and at least sometimes they'll say no, they crafted it that way and that's the way they want it to look. At least one of the ones you linked to is that way.
posted by jessamyn (staff) at 9:31 AM on June 5, 2006

But if the post goes up, it suggests that the poster has gotten through looking at it in preview without thinking anything is wrong.

It's a nice thought, but this seems like it'd add complexity to the system without adding significant benefit.
posted by cortex at 9:32 AM on June 5, 2006

Fair enough. Carry on.
posted by anotherpanacea at 9:33 AM on June 5, 2006

I really should do a more inside after all these years.
posted by mathowie (staff) at 9:49 AM on June 5, 2006

Now that is a good idea.
posted by cortex at 9:59 AM on June 5, 2006

Although [more inside] doesn't really solve this problem on Ask. Some people still post huge questions and you need to clean it up.
posted by smackfu at 10:10 AM on June 5, 2006

Two paragraph principle? I hadn't heard of that before.

I'd like to propose a one-paragraph limit on front page posts. Note, however, that I don't particularly care how long that one paragraph is. The reason is that when scanning posts, a blank line generally indicates where a new post starts. It throws me when I start reading what I think is a new post and it seems completely without context, and only after a few seconds of head-scratching do I realize it's the second paragraph of another post.
posted by DevilsAdvocate at 10:26 AM on June 5, 2006

If you do implement a [more inside] feature for metafilter, it'd be nice if you added the 'reorganize' feature I described. As metafilter grows, it seems we are having more and more discussions about wasting 'valuable real estate' on the front page. By giving the poster some post-hoc control, the conversation over front-page length could continue in a less theoretical mode. As it is, all anyone can say is, "don't do that again." This way there'd be room for a metatalk that flatters the poster (Great post!) while asking that the second paragraph (or last five sentences, or whatever) be moved inside. I think it'd be good for the community, and encourage more nuanced approaches to some FPP callouts.
posted by anotherpanacea at 10:29 AM on June 5, 2006

I support a MI for the blue. A most excellent idea.
posted by loquacious at 10:38 AM on June 5, 2006

Although [more inside] doesn't really solve this problem on Ask. Some people still post huge questions and you need to clean it up.

I've definitely noticed it's less common since MI was implemented.
posted by agropyron at 11:27 AM on June 5, 2006

Set a character limit for the text that appears on the front page, then when the person submits the post suggest they move the excess text to "more inside."
posted by kirkaracha at 11:42 AM on June 5, 2006

DevilsAdvocate writes "I'd like to propose a one-paragraph limit on front page posts"

I'd like to see this too, no line breaks on posts. The worst posts for this are those posted immediately after a couple of single sentence posts with a 15 line penning paragraph; line break; single sentence; line break; single sentence. The multi paragraph post kind of blends into the two single liners posted earlier.
posted by Mitheral at 2:17 PM on June 5, 2006

I invariably read posts with line breaks wrong. I see each one as a separate post when I'm skimming, and the 2nd post never makes sense.
posted by smackfu at 2:21 PM on June 5, 2006

I would love to have the MI pony. Also, what DevilsAdvocate, Mitheral, and Smackfu said - I throw my hat in the one paragraph ring, too - much less confusing for skimming the front page.
posted by madamjujujive at 8:33 PM on June 5, 2006