Ability to post questions in one's profile?

January 6, 2007 1:15 AM

I have an idea that popped into my head while I was reading this.

Sometimes it comes up that people need/want to ask more than one question that warrants the use of AskMefi within the 2 week period. How about something in your profile where you could post semi-smallish questions + tags? These wouldn't be posted to the main page, but if someone had a similar question that they want to ask, these other smallish questions could come up in a tag search. Then, when the second searcher asks their question, maybe have something that pops up in the first person's profile next to their smallish question to alert them that a somewhat related question has been asked.

Note: I have no idea if this is one of those things that seems absolutely stupid or if it is too difficult to code or whatever. (I hope that "feature requests" was a good place to put this, even though it is probably nonexistant on anyone else's radar screen.)
posted by sperose to feature requests at 1:15 AM (29 comments total)

Noone needs to ask questions here. Mefi is not the answer to all the problems and curiosities of life.

And this sounds too complicated.
posted by peacay at 1:34 AM on January 6, 2007 [1 favorite]

NO. You don't need to ask any goddamn questions. I support the hard 2 week limit, because it weeds out pointless questions from abusive posters. A leading complaint is that inspires hand-wringing in the needy motherfuckers over whether they should really be asking their questions — that is the point.
posted by blasdelf at 2:25 AM on January 6, 2007 [3 favorites]

How many people do you think are actually searching tags? Or even know how to? Seems that there's an awful lot of "already kinda been asked"-type questions already that the OP hasn't looked up.

Admittedly (coming from a newcomer's perspective), it's not that intuitive. The Tags tab just has the 150 most often used, and it's not until you clicked one and looked at the address-bar that you realise you can look up tags that aren't on the list.
posted by kisch mokusch at 2:26 AM on January 6, 2007

er ...you have clicked one...
posted by kisch mokusch at 2:39 AM on January 6, 2007

Hey, speaking of searching tags, and I know this is somewhat unrelated, but I'll post it here because there is a good chance it will be seen by matthowie or jessamyn here: the tags page in Metafilter Music appears to be malfunctioning.

Sorry for piggybacking.
posted by micayetoca at 4:28 AM on January 6, 2007

I find it really interesting that people are so bent on coming up with addition ways to ask more questions more often. My own feeling is that everyone who thinks more questions is a good idea, should just give it a rest. I also think that if I don't like these kinds of requests I should just skip reading them. So I got nuthin'.

Oh, and what blasdelf said...
posted by qwip at 4:40 AM on January 6, 2007

matt said he'd examine the effect in a couple of months. until then, try to remember what you did with questions before askme existed and use those means again.
posted by dflemingdotorg at 5:25 AM on January 6, 2007

I find it really interesting that people are so bent on coming up with addition ways to ask more questions more often.

This is understandable after time between questions has been upped.

Me, I say go back to one week or only 3 questions a month, usuable at any time.
posted by Brandon Blatcher at 5:36 AM on January 6, 2007

axme: how do i stop the uncharitable thoughts that flood my mind about people like you?
posted by quonsar at 5:39 AM on January 6, 2007

this goes out to all of you who can't get enough questions onto askmefi: ask yahoo.
just answer.
ask.com.
ask for kids.
all experts.
and, last but not least, ask google
posted by localhuman at 5:57 AM on January 6, 2007

how do i stop the uncharitable thoughts that flood my mind about people like you?

ask jeeves.
posted by dflemingdotorg at 6:03 AM on January 6, 2007

Also, Wikipedia Reference Desk.
posted by DevilsAdvocate at 8:38 AM on January 6, 2007

Perhaps Matt can put localhuman's links in the message that appears when you're waiting for the two week interval to expire?
posted by Brandon Blatcher at 9:13 AM on January 6, 2007

Once upon a time, there was a bakery. It was an unusual bakery, because the owner and his partner didn't bake the bread. The owner provided the equipment, while he and his partner determined the quality of the bread, but it was the customers who baked the bread and gave it to each other. They even brought their own ingredients.

At first, this seemed like the most preposterous idea since large logos on the front of shirts, but because of fine ingredients, and the talent and expertise of the customers, it caught on. Every once in a while the equipment would break down, but the customers would help the owner fix it--and even improve it--so the bread continued to get better and better. Every once in a while a customer would bake a loaf of bread that was too soft, or open ended, or not nutritious enough, and it would be rejected. When this happened, everyone would gather around laughing and poking the offender with forks.

The owner and his wife received rave reviews, and began to make money. Since their bakery was worth millions of dollars, they decided to give prizes to the customers who made the best bread. The bakery became so popular that the owners felt overworked, and finally had to say "Enough! There's too much bread! Stop baking so much bread!" They made a rule that said the customers could come in only once every two weeks to bake a loaf of bread.

One day, one of the customers meekly asked, "Could we maybe bake some muffins?"

"No, we can't. Don't be stupid! Go down the street if you want to bake muffins!" was the reply.

And everybody laughed and brought out the forks.
posted by weapons-grade pandemonium at 9:51 AM on January 6, 2007 [10 favorites]

axme: how do i stop the uncharitable thoughts that flood my mind about people like you?

I'm not a doctor, but I think if you continue to take your medication, they probably won't need to resume the electroshock therapy.
posted by Dave Faris at 9:51 AM on January 6, 2007

SHIT, THAT WAS THE MOST FUN I'D HAD IN YEARS. HIT ME, DOC!
posted by quonsar at 10:05 AM on January 6, 2007

Why am I hungry for fresh bread allasudden?
posted by The Deej at 10:25 AM on January 6, 2007

Do they really have muffins at ask.com? What kind?
posted by koeselitz at 12:46 PM on January 6, 2007

muffins.metafilter.com
AskMuff


ok I give up
posted by dirtynumbangelboy at 2:12 PM on January 6, 2007

Allrighty, shot down. (After re-reading it at a more coherent time of day, it does sound pretty silly.)

Although, I can't be the only person who does random tag searches when I get curious about something, right?
posted by sperose at 4:58 PM on January 6, 2007

By the way, the offer I made in this related thread is still open if anyone wants to take me up on it. No emails yet but everybody has to start out small.
posted by A Thousand Baited Hooks at 6:27 PM on January 6, 2007

Only one question?
Yes. You may ask another one in 6 to 12 weeks.
posted by blue_beetle at 10:09 PM on January 6, 2007

wow, this meta post could have been much shorter:

question: Can we have rss feeds of specific askme tags?

answer: no, it's a huge pain in the ass right now.

question: I really need to know the answer to at least two questions a week, though.

answer: really? I mean, how does that even work? Do you have some deadline for knowledge where, if you haven't learned 16 new esoteric things in 2 months you'll die? this doesn't make any sense at all! read a book!
posted by shmegegge at 8:59 AM on January 7, 2007

now I just realized that I got my "I need more questions" threads conflated. point is, yeah you just want tag specific rss feeds, which would be nice but they've been asked for before and i recall them being too much of a pain to implement.
posted by shmegegge at 9:04 AM on January 7, 2007

goddammit I have a question and I have two days and change to wait and so suddenly it's personal and I hate the two week limit

*grumbles, tries to google harder*
posted by cortex at 10:49 AM on January 7, 2007

I'll post it for you, cortex. My email's in my profile, or just put it here.
posted by timeistight at 1:08 PM on January 7, 2007

Thanks man, but it's cool. Not urgent enough to bother with the runaround—just grumble-producing.
posted by cortex at 3:46 PM on January 7, 2007

There's always Metachat. I use it for the chattier, more minor of my questions.
posted by orange swan at 5:37 PM on January 7, 2007

Good point, orange swan. Let's see what the bunnies can do.
posted by cortex at 8:19 AM on January 8, 2007