Green vs. Blue

April 5, 2007 1:23 PM

Just a casual observation, but it looks like AskMe's post count will reach parity with MeFi's somewhere in the next 24-48 hours. By the end of the week there will be more threads created on the green than created in the blue.
posted by XQUZYPHYR to MetaFilter-related at 1:23 PM (43 comments total)

first post.
posted by chunking express at 1:27 PM on April 5, 2007

Yep. (Excepting that the true AskMe index count starts around 3400 or so, and is diluted further by a few hundred more gaps up until the 7000s, due to the initial sharing-of-space with Metatalk).

I'm particularly pleased to see the convergence so close to the 60000 mark exactly. And right after hitting 1000 on Music! But I'm a slut for round numbers.
posted by cortex at 1:30 PM on April 5, 2007

That's a serious milestone. MetaTalk has been at a good clip lately, too. With a little oomph we can take it to the next level!

Come on everybody!
posted by scarabic at 1:30 PM on April 5, 2007

Is this a good place to mention that I made comment 400000 yesterday?
posted by jessamyn at 1:31 PM on April 5, 2007

Note for future Metagematriasts: 400,000 is the number for nasal douching.

Also, we kicked over to AskMe comment 900000 pretty recently.
posted by cortex at 1:33 PM on April 5, 2007

Metagematriasts

Is it just me or does this sound like some vaguely obscene fetish community?
posted by jonmc at 1:39 PM on April 5, 2007

Me, I think it sounds like a Trekkie secret society.
posted by jason's_planet at 1:44 PM on April 5, 2007

same thing.
posted by jonmc at 1:46 PM on April 5, 2007

Is this a good place to mention that I made comment 400000 yesterday?
posted by jessamyn at 4:31 PM on April 5 [+]
[!]

absolutely not.
posted by shmegegge at 2:13 PM on April 5, 2007

I had never heard of nasal douching until few weeks ago when I watched that Six Feet Under episode where the guy from LA Confidential is all 'here's your birthday present' and the dude was like 'a gravy boat, no way' and then he was like 'no way is right. that's a nasal douche from some indigineous people from some third world country and i shove that thing up my sinuses every morning before coffee and weetabix' and then his wife gets all mad because he's been nasal douching in her kitchen sink and then the one gay guy has a fantasy song and dance sequence in his head about gayness but not about nasal douching while his cop boyfriend looks annoyed and that red headed girl smokes some more weed and somewhere else there's this other chick who's australian but is pretending not to be has sex. It's early in Season 4 after Lili Taylor shows up and says 'I used to be relevant. I shot Andy Warhol and stuff and you're writing me out after like 10 episodes"
posted by pieoverdone at 2:14 PM on April 5, 2007 [3 favorites]

I think what's called for is a flood of shit posts on the blue, right Jess? Keep those greenies at bay, eh?
posted by Mister_A at 2:24 PM on April 5, 2007

/me waits for the post where someone claims AskMe is being overrun by heathens
posted by frogan at 2:27 PM on April 5, 2007

AskMe is the site that ate Metafilter.

Now we know what it's like to give birth to a little baby. Feed it. Nurture it. And have it turn into a 7 foot 9 basketball star from China. Hopefully, it'll get a sweet contract with the big leagues, and we can live off that for the rest of our days.

Er. I mean, Matt can.
posted by Dave Faris at 2:30 PM on April 5, 2007

Is this a good place to mention that I made comment 400000 yesterday?

EAGLE RIVER?
posted by XQUZYPHYR at 2:30 PM on April 5, 2007

...I'm a slut...
posted by cortex at 2:30 PM on April 5 [+] [!]
posted by mr_crash_davis at 2:36 PM on April 5, 2007

Oh come on, crash. That's totally out of context. I'm just saying I really get off on anal bean-counting.
posted by cortex at 2:45 PM on April 5, 2007

Is this a good place to mention anal beads?
posted by jessamyn at 2:50 PM on April 5, 2007

oh... BEANS!
posted by jessamyn at 2:50 PM on April 5, 2007

I'm particularly pleased to see the convergence
Pleased? I have waited cold millennia for this hour, this dawn, this awakening! What, it was 1987 and I overslept?
posted by Abiezer at 2:51 PM on April 5, 2007

Look like you picked a bad thread to quit sniffing glue.
posted by XQUZYPHYR at 2:56 PM on April 5, 2007

need more posts on the blue

SOUNDS LIKE A JOB FOR NEWSFILTER
posted by spiderwire at 3:08 PM on April 5, 2007 [1 favorite]

Yes, and half of those 60,000 questions are "Should I leave my S.O.? Here is a novel wrought of my equivocation." The other half are equal parts "What should I name my cat/mix tape/personal saviour?", "I like n. What else will I like?", and "How weird is this personal behavior I have? Will you please either justify my anxiety or reassure me of my terribly boring ordinariness?" There is a .05% margin of error, which is composed of questions like: "Could Superman be Pope? [more inside]", "Is this illegal? [more inside]", "im bored am use me.", and "comptar brok!"

I keep holding out hope that some day, some how, I will find AskMe useful and/or enjoyable. But for now, I'm sticking with the grey, which acts as an adequate filter against the immense noise in AskMe. I usually see the 'important' or 'classic' questions eventually.
posted by Eideteker at 3:48 PM on April 5, 2007 [1 favorite]

Is this a good place to mention anal beads?

start you a website
posted by scrump at 3:49 PM on April 5, 2007 [1 favorite]

scrump redeems!
posted by cgc373 at 4:54 PM on April 5, 2007

Eideteker , I wish I could favorite that more than once. I came over here to ask about this 'anonymous' person* that keeps posting stuff that seems like it should go on some blog page somewhere.

I do find AskMe occasionally useful and feel useful in the sharing, but c'mon already, we don't bite (much), just come out already and post as yerself already, that's what you're essentially asking us to do.

And tie me up and call me Shirley. ;P





*don't know the sex, you see
posted by lysdexic at 5:08 PM on April 5, 2007

/slap! enough of the 'already's already!
posted by lysdexic at 5:14 PM on April 5, 2007

Anyone want to come up with some ideas on keeping the number of posts down? It seems to me that the least intrusive ways are to (1) better indexing to keep repeat questions down (2) , and perhaps an emphasis that many variables are superfluous [and to an extent less relationship advice and more questions that are directly answerable]

There must be someone who specializes in information theory who can suggest ways to better search/categorize elements. I envision something that highlights top 5 matches are so and a "are you sure that it is not answered in these question, we wish to keep the integrity of the site up ..." -- I realize that this was mentioned before by Matt, but it seems like the sooner we start on this the less of a problem it will be down the road. Similar to "double posts", threads can be closed with explanation, but perhaps not deleted. In a fashion similar to Metatalk.

Volume is not necessarily inherently bad, but what makes it so great now is that Metafilter is not the rest of the Internet (I believe this has been said before and the reason many people stay and many people join).

... and to put my money where my mouth is, if there was some sort of pledge drive to fund this endeavor. Such things are not cheap and I recognize that, but I think it is a valuable tool.

I don't know, I think a few light touches could be done that would make it a much more useful tool. I would hate to think that there are experts in any given field missing a question they could answer because they did not check in the 9 hour frame it was in there. Yes, while many people press next, realistically that is probably a small percent of the total population, something that is particularly bad given the more esoteric questions which make AskMetafilter more useful.

Well those are just some general ideas that probably work better in concept than in practice. Nonetheless, I cannot imagine such a dialog on how the site can be improved would be a bad thing.
posted by geoff. at 7:19 PM on April 5, 2007

Or, on the less labor intensive side, perhaps some way to create an alert system if certain tags are given. Perhaps categories or topics that are of particular interest to a user can be highlighted on the same page, much the same "best answer is" ...
posted by geoff. at 7:21 PM on April 5, 2007

Oh fuck me, I didn't realize that we weren't talking about the speed. I was thinking that the speed of questions had been increasing. Any data on the velocity of questions? Has been consistent or has it increased since the two-week question implementation?
posted by geoff. at 7:22 PM on April 5, 2007

Slow down, geoff. Your question is just too damn fast.
posted by breezeway at 7:53 PM on April 5, 2007

I really get off on anal...
posted by cortex at 4:45 PM on April 5 [+]
[!]

That was bait, wasn't it?
posted by sourwookie at 8:01 PM on April 5, 2007

This thread needs more Nori.
posted by Devils Rancher at 8:29 PM on April 5, 2007

Hate to sound a note of pop psych, but do posters to AskMe really want answers and advice? Or do they just need someone to talk to?
Pretty sad if you have no one but a keyboard and an internet connection.
posted by Cranberry at 10:23 PM on April 5, 2007

I'd say that varies a lot from asker to asker and from question to question, Cranberry.
posted by cortex at 11:15 PM on April 5, 2007

[D]o posters to AskMe really want answers and advice? Or do they just need someone to talk to? Pretty sad if you have no one but a keyboard and an internet connection.

Seems like most of them want advice. There are many better places to go if you just need to vent/unload.
posted by jessamyn at 6:45 AM on April 6, 2007

...that...
posted by cortex at 2:15 AM on April 6 [+] [!]

LOLLERSKATES!
posted by Kwine at 6:47 AM on April 6, 2007

...
posted by flabdablet at 7:35 AM on April 6, 2007

.
posted by Fuzzy Monster at 9:18 AM on April 6, 2007

It's early in Season 4 after Lili Taylor shows up and says 'I used to be relevant. I shot Andy Warhol and stuff

I'm going to have the fucking poached salmon, with the son-of-a-bitching rice, and a dirty bastard salad with a shitload of Roquefort dressing. Thank you. And um, who knows what this asshole wants.
posted by dreamsign at 11:02 AM on April 6, 2007

I'm... to...s...s...ing... a... salad... with... shit... dressing. [dreamsign] knows what this asshole wants.
posted by dreamsign at 11:02 AM on April 6

Thanks for sharing that. You sicken me.
posted by team lowkey at 12:17 PM on April 6, 2007

a more usable "does this answer your question" feature similar to what geoff described would seriously cut down on the extraneous ask me posts. But that would have to come along with a more usable way to search the site than the crappy yahoo site search we've got going on now.

Just for the record, I joined initially because of lifehacker's links to ask metafilter. I still think it's the best part of the site. So shoot me. I dig the green.
posted by willie11 at 5:10 PM on April 6, 2007

"Eideteker , I wish I could favorite that more than once."

Wish? It only costs $5. Are you telling me that if you had a genie-inhabited magic lamp right now, you would wish for $5? Because otherwise, you mean, "I liked your comment, but not $5 worth of like."

And anyway, I could use that $5. END WORLD SOCKPUPPET HUNGER IN OUR LIFETIMES.
posted by Eideteker at 5:18 PM on April 7, 2007

If wishes are worth $5, I'm in the wrong line of work.
posted by lysdexic at 6:23 AM on April 9, 2007