double March 14, 2007 10:33 AM   Subscribe

PonyFilter: It's annoying to click on the same link twice in a post. How about sending the New Post form back for the user to "fix" it?
posted by Armitage Shanks to Feature Requests at 10:33 AM (31 comments total)

While I think it's dumb to have the same link twice, I avoid that by noting what links have changed color in my browser...
posted by klangklangston at 10:41 AM on March 14, 2007


It would be very cool if old posts were searched to ensure exact doubles never occured.
posted by phrontist at 10:43 AM on March 14, 2007


How often do we run into this sort of thing? I mean, I know it happens, and I saw the post today that I'm guessing prompted the suggestion, but it feels pretty outlier. Do we get one of these a week? A month?
posted by cortex (staff) at 10:46 AM on March 14, 2007


The minutiest of minutia.
posted by Dave Faris at 10:55 AM on March 14, 2007


I avoid it by noting color changes and by always hovering before I click. But maybe I'm the only one here who's ever been burned by a goatse.
posted by DU at 10:55 AM on March 14, 2007


If we "fixed" this we'd eliminate the occasional cool performance-art-type post that works its magic partly by repeating the same link. Seriously, I think it has expressive possibilities which outweigh the (rare) inconveniences of either hovering or accidentally revisiting a link.
posted by grobstein at 11:14 AM on March 14, 2007


Does this happen a lot?
posted by OmieWise at 11:16 AM on March 14, 2007


The minutiest of minutia.

Au contraire, my friend. For instance, I silently grin and bear it when people have no period after the main link or allow a space to sneak in. *twitches, taps fingers symmetrically*
posted by Armitage Shanks at 11:26 AM on March 14, 2007


I feel so close to you right now, AS.
posted by cortex (staff) at 11:41 AM on March 14, 2007


The minutiest of minutia.

Can we get a formal policy on serial commas?
posted by scottreynen at 11:41 AM on March 14, 2007


That's nothing. Just this morning, I decided to compile a list of the ten least necessary ponies ever. Here they are: 10, 9, 8, 7, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1.
posted by Plutor at 11:51 AM on March 14, 2007 [2 favorites]


Plutor totally got me. Fucker.
posted by mathowie (staff) at 11:53 AM on March 14, 2007


Serial commas must wear ties and tails if they'd like to be formal; hence, serial semi-colons.
posted by occhiblu at 12:06 PM on March 14, 2007 [1 favorite]


Oh dear... my first post on the green, and I get called out. Apologies, Armitage. If an admin wishes to hope me and remove the second link, please do.
posted by DreamerFi at 12:09 PM on March 14, 2007


my first post on the green

Stoner or color-blind. You decide.
posted by and hosted from Uranus at 12:14 PM on March 14, 2007


I dunno. What does anil dash think about this?
posted by Kwine at 12:15 PM on March 14, 2007


and has anyone seen these weird time zone problems? what's up with that?
posted by boo_radley at 12:28 PM on March 14, 2007


I'd be curious what percentage of double-links are just accidents because it's not obvious to a new(ish) user how the link title, url, and description fields go together.

In effect, the New Post page is designed for people to make single-link posts with some text to follow. If you're going to have more than one link in the post, you need to know how to get it into the description anyway, and then it's much simpler enter the whole thing in the description.

(No offense, DreamerFi, yours just happened to come up after I'd noticed a few others lately.)
posted by Armitage Shanks at 12:31 PM on March 14, 2007


Wow, Plutor went to a lot of trouble compiling that list.


Wait a second...
posted by Terminal Verbosity at 12:41 PM on March 14, 2007


Subscripted link type indicators cause extra line spacing. I have to lie down, mock my pain without me.
posted by Armitage Shanks at 12:42 PM on March 14, 2007


This would be a good time to advocate for reforming the posting form for the blue. It should be "title" and "body". You form you links as you like in the "body" part, and that is exactly what the goes into the post. If you can't figure out how to do a HTML link then you shouldn't be posting.

Also: Seriously?!? You guys disable followed-link-coloring? Why in god's name? That's a very important usability thing for me, I would be very upset if the browser didn't do that.
posted by Rhomboid at 1:14 PM on March 14, 2007


Errr, now I see that I misread above and people were talking about using the followed link coloring feature, not disabling it.
posted by Rhomboid at 1:17 PM on March 14, 2007


Hey doc, my arm hurts whenever I do this....
posted by jessamyn (staff) at 1:20 PM on March 14, 2007


If you can't figure out how to do a HTML link then you shouldn't be posting.

In a mercenary snarky sort of way I agree with you, but that is sort of a shitty approach for our less savvy members.
posted by cortex (staff) at 1:36 PM on March 14, 2007


^^ Like me!

Also, fucking fuck, man! Fuck it.
posted by Mister_A at 1:51 PM on March 14, 2007


Armitage: (No offense, DreamerFi, yours just happened to come up after I'd noticed a few others lately.)

none taken, no worries. You actually have a point with the double links, I just didn't think about that part when I was posting.
posted by DreamerFi at 1:56 PM on March 14, 2007


and metafilter continues to slowly eat itself.
posted by quonsar at 2:46 PM on March 14, 2007


In a mercenary snarky sort of way I agree with you, but that is sort of a shitty approach for our less savvy members.

In that case, how about "Provided that the form includes a link button that works in all browsers, if you still can't figure out how to construct a post you shouldn't be posting."
posted by Rhomboid at 3:42 PM on March 14, 2007


klangklangston writes "While I think it's dumb to have the same link twice, I avoid that by noting what links have changed color in my browser..."

That doesn't work if, like me, you cruise down the front page opening links in new tabs. Because the link doesn't change colour until the page finishes loading you don't have indication of repeats most of the time.
posted by Mitheral at 4:49 PM on March 14, 2007


Is there no nit so insignificant that we can't beat it to a pulp, then do nothing about it?
posted by dg at 5:18 PM on March 14, 2007


Every nit is significant, no matter how insignificant.
posted by Dave Faris at 6:15 PM on March 14, 2007


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