Random link?

October 31, 2001 1:09 PM

How about a link which will pull up a random thread from the archive?
posted by feelinglistless to Feature Requests at 1:09 PM (17 comments total)

Anything for the birthday-boy!

(that's what you get for announcing your birthday.)

Hmm. I see some flaws with this idea, inasmuch as some threads just suck. But I like randomness...
posted by ColdChef at 1:44 PM on October 31, 2001

not to mention threads that don't exist due to double post deletes...
posted by machaus at 1:46 PM on October 31, 2001

Yeah, that might create some kind of worm-hole effect if you randomly generated a thread which has ceased to exist.

Let us not tamper in God's domain, gentlemen (and ladies, of course).
posted by Kafkaesque at 1:51 PM on October 31, 2001

If God didn't want its domain tampered with it shouldn't have put up an xml feed.

Random Metafilter. (no double post check)
posted by alana at 2:10 PM on October 31, 2001

But sure there would be a decent ratio of valid links to well not so valid links ... and as has been discussed elsewhere the perceived 'suckiness' of a link is in the eye of the beholder -- also, how hard would it be to code something which detect whether a thread has been deleted and to swiftly load go off looking for -- hotornot now have a reload if the image isn't there anymore (I'm not sure about this which is why I'm asking -- the most I know about html can be used for formatting the text in this comment.
posted by feelinglistless at 2:11 PM on October 31, 2001

alan, you're my hero...
posted by feelinglistless at 2:12 PM on October 31, 2001

alan: what are the odds that the first thread i get is a double post? i should buy a lotto ticket today.
posted by pnevares at 2:18 PM on October 31, 2001

I haven't had any deleted posts yet -- spooky --
posted by feelinglistless at 2:39 PM on October 31, 2001

Now that is just pretty cool. I like random searches and call ups, never know what you might learn.
posted by bjgeiger at 2:58 PM on October 31, 2001

alan, thanks, I dig it.
posted by msacheson at 3:07 PM on October 31, 2001

i should buy a lotto ticket today.

Or perhaps you shouldn't go out of the house...
posted by fooljay at 3:22 PM on October 31, 2001

Steven C. Den Beste is the Nostradamus of Mefi. Any other predictions Steve?
posted by feelinglistless at 3:34 PM on October 31, 2001

How many posts have been deleted since MeFi Day 1, anybody know?

I've tried alan's (terrific) RandomFilter 15 times in a row without hitting a deleted/missing post, though I did get two discussions on Amazon.com in a row...
posted by arco at 3:41 PM on October 31, 2001

This is a great feature idea. I wonder how it would affect MeFi's front-page if it was prominently placed there. People might feel less need to fill up today's front-page with random crap, because they can get their fill from 12000+ old threads. It might also help newcomers get a feel for the culture of the place more quickly. We've all been complaining about how newbies don't respect MeFi's long and venerable traditions, but it's pretty hard to get a feel for those unless you've been around for a *long* time. Just think, if you've been following MeFi for seven weeks as of today then all you know is the post-9/11 scene. That's a lot of lurking; and yet would any of the older members say that post-9/11 is an accurate representation of the total MeFi picture?

It's really hard to trawl back into MeFi's past at the moment; search is forever timing out these days. Yet half of the complaints in MeTa are driven by old-timer frustration with newbie ignorance of MeFi's past. This random-thread feature could be an ideal way of addressing that.
posted by rory at 3:26 AM on November 1, 2001

What will happen if someone comes across a thread that they want to comment on and it jumps back up to the top of the Recent Comments list. Well, it'll jump back up to the top of the list, obviously, but apart from that? Could some threads live forever?
posted by Grangousier at 7:31 AM on November 1, 2001

Ah, 1142. That answers my question.
posted by Grangousier at 7:35 AM on November 1, 2001

i think sdb is on vacation or somethin...
posted by lotsofno at 11:32 AM on November 1, 2001