Rank Users Based on Favorites

May 7, 2007 8:41 AM

Why not make a page that ranks users based on how many "favorites" their comments, FPPs, and questions garner? I'm not sure hard how this would be to create, but it might be a nice incentive to post quality items. Also, it would highlight some of the dedicated, and/or imaginative members of Mefi. Just a thought.
posted by time to put your air goggles on! to feature requests at 8:41 AM (137 comments total)

No. This has been proposed and shot down a couple of times. MeFi is not a popularity contest.
posted by monju_bosatsu at 8:51 AM on May 7, 2007 [4 favorites]

Because different users use "favorites" for different things, and sometimes a "favorite" doesn't denote "quality" at all, even for a single user. Such a ranking would be worthless, or at best misleading.
posted by yhbc at 8:52 AM on May 7, 2007 [3 favorites]

I sure wouldn't mind seeing which of my comments were favourited, though.
posted by five fresh fish at 8:53 AM on May 7, 2007

Ah, very good point yhbc.
posted by time to put your air goggles on! at 8:54 AM on May 7, 2007

Not seen this Mr Fish?
posted by cillit bang at 8:56 AM on May 7, 2007

What about just aggregating favorite comments? That category points more toward quality than "saving something for later".
posted by time to put your air goggles on! at 9:02 AM on May 7, 2007

my feeling is that the people who would want to post quality items based on this feedback are posting quality items anyway, and the ones who wouldn't would use this to do some bizarre sort of "my number of favorites is larger than yours, so clearly I'm a better mefite and you are wrong about how much Winston Chuchill weighed" style of internet debate.
posted by shmegegge at 9:07 AM on May 7, 2007 [2 favorites]

to prove my point, I have just favorited my last comment in order to give myself the advantage in future favorite pissing contests.
posted by shmegegge at 9:10 AM on May 7, 2007 [1 favorite]

Ranking people by (insert any metric here) is a bad idea for a couple of big reasons:

1. It implies the site is about the ranking, which it isn't;
2. It encourages ranking-chasing behavior that may not actually be a net improvement.

We have a favorites system that works (in part) as a positive feedback mechanism for the individual user. That's just about enough, I think; if someone personally gets a boost from that, cool for them, but there's no general broadcasting or score-keeping system.

Dedicated/imaginative/etc members get shouted out in Metatalk now and then; their posts and comments get sidebarred, and mentioned in the podcast; their stuff shows up on the Popular Favorites tab; people link to 'em and laud them in-thread; and so on. All these little things happen organically, and are transient enough that they don't have the feel of Official Record to them, which is for the best.
posted by cortex at 9:11 AM on May 7, 2007 [1 favorite]

MeFi is not a popularity contest.

In much the same way that many bicycle events are "not races" but every participant will be able tell you at the drop of a hat what his time was and how many people finished ahead of him.
posted by Wolfdog at 9:17 AM on May 7, 2007

Ranking people is a bad idea. Full stop.
posted by mcwetboy at 9:20 AM on May 7, 2007 [5 favorites]

Doing anything to "rank users" is a bad idea. There are all sorts of interesting things we can (and will) do with favorites and best answers and other sorts of mild indicators of quality, but ranking users based on them is not something we'll do.

There is a popular favorites page for the whole site, and for each subsite, and you can follow your contributions that have been marked as a favorite. That's about it for now.
posted by mathowie at 9:23 AM on May 7, 2007 [1 favorite]

...plus, if you favorite me, I'll favorite you...and a new conspriracy is born.
posted by BozoBurgerBonanza at 9:25 AM on May 7, 2007 [3 favorites]

MeFi is not a popularity contest.
Ranking people is a bad idea. Full stop.

I've seen this and similar ideas shot down by numerous people numerous times, so I don't think it'll ever happen.

That being said, the anti-scoreboard crowd just doesn't seem to understand how effective positive rewards are when it comes to encouraging good behaviors and better communities. There's a reason the pinball machine lights up when you get the high score. There's a reason you collect shines when playing a Mario game. There's a reason your boss hands you a paycheck at the end of the week.

To that crowd, I say ... I'm very sorry you were all picked last for dodgeball because you were the arty, brainy, geeky, unpopular kid in elementary school. But if you want a better community, you reward it when you see it.
posted by frogan at 9:27 AM on May 7, 2007

Ranking people is a bad idea. Full stop.
Rankling people, however, is what we do.
posted by Floydd at 9:28 AM on May 7, 2007

There is a popular favorites page for the whole site, and for each subsite,

There's a page that aggregates popular favorites for the whole site, not just each subsite? How did I miss that? Where is it?
posted by and hosted from Uranus at 9:29 AM on May 7, 2007

Shut up. Seriously. Just shut up.
posted by Afroblanco at 9:30 AM on May 7, 2007

I'd buy a sockpuppet or twelve and have them favorite all my comments. I'd win in no time.
posted by smackfu at 9:30 AM on May 7, 2007 [1 favorite]

Rankin' come forward.
Full Stop, say Ranking Full Stop.
Full Stop, say Ranking Full Stop.
My name is Ranking Full Stop
So all you really got to do is just-a move you little feet
And just-a rock-a to the beat, as I would say, yeah, alright...
posted by vronsky at 9:30 AM on May 7, 2007 [1 favorite]

I'M A RANK USER.
posted by quonsar at 9:31 AM on May 7, 2007

As much as I frequently long for a minus sign next to some points when someone says something I fiercely think is dumb, favorites aren't meant as a measure of popularity and Metafilter has been doing just fine by not worrying about rewards systems.
posted by drezdn at 9:32 AM on May 7, 2007

To that crowd, I say ... I'm very sorry you were all picked last for dodgeball because you were the arty, brainy, geeky, unpopular kid in elementary school. But if you want a better community, you reward it when you see it.

Anti-scorecard is not the same thing as anti-reward, and taking a weak, point-missing jab at presumed motivation makes you look pretty silly, frogan.
posted by cortex at 9:33 AM on May 7, 2007

Doing anything to "rank users" is a bad idea.

What if they're really rank, though?

For all I know the guy may have some psychological "First comment!" compulsion, and god bless his heart for responding to every second AskMe regardless of how much - or how little - he has to contribute, but for fuck's sake, it's one thing to run at the mouth all the time but quite another to be an asshole while you're doing it.
posted by Alvy Ampersand at 9:34 AM on May 7, 2007 [2 favorites]

As much as I frequently long for a minus sign next to some points when someone says something I fiercely think is dumb

Me too, but then I remember this isn't digg.
posted by smackfu at 9:36 AM on May 7, 2007 [1 favorite]

Found it. :)
posted by and hosted from Uranus at 9:37 AM on May 7, 2007

Is that some kind of backhanded callout, Alvy?
posted by Floydd at 9:39 AM on May 7, 2007

That being said, the anti-scoreboard crowd just doesn't seem to understand how effective positive rewards are when it comes to encouraging good behaviors and better communities.

Positive rewards for what, though? Many of the most favorited comments are one-liners that don't really add that much to the site.
posted by monju_bosatsu at 9:41 AM on May 7, 2007

Well, it started out as a pun on "rank" (Curse you, quonsar!), but then quickly spiraled into ventiness.

Wouldn't a backhanded callout mean I was actually lauding someone?
posted by Alvy Ampersand at 9:46 AM on May 7, 2007

We have enough boondoggling occurring as it is, this would only serve to catapult our misgivings to a nearly orbital position - a satellite of 'doggling that would blind all onlookers with its inefficient combustion and infinite fuel source, blanketing the land with an extinguishing nuclear winter, asphyxiating those who had yet to succumb to this supposed judgement day.

I'm all for it!
posted by prostyle at 9:52 AM on May 7, 2007

Many of the most favorited comments are one-liners that don't really add that much to the site.
I go for the six-liner niche.
posted by Wolfdog at 9:56 AM on May 7, 2007

"Positive rewards for what, though? Many of the most favorited comments are one-liners that don't really add that much to the site."

Rewards for what, you say?
posted by klangklangston at 9:56 AM on May 7, 2007

Goddamn do I want that air mattress.
posted by cortex at 9:58 AM on May 7, 2007

Is that some kind of backhanded callout, Alvy?

Ham-fisted, or maybe underhanded. Possibly under-fisted.
posted by CKmtl at 10:00 AM on May 7, 2007

pssh, i won metafilter years ago.
posted by fishfucker at 10:00 AM on May 7, 2007

"Goddamn do I want that air mattress."

Just 200 more favorites! I'm angling for that scout axe— then I'll make them all pay!
posted by klangklangston at 10:01 AM on May 7, 2007

I don't think this is a good idea. I'm already a favorite whore without any other incentive.

My in-thread hooking would only get worse.
posted by YoBananaBoy at 10:06 AM on May 7, 2007

to prove my point, I have just favorited my last comment in order to give myself the advantage in future favorite pissing contests.
posted by shmegegge

Hah! I just flagged that comment, which under Rule 13A, Subsection (c), negates four of your self-favoritings. Now you'll have to get three Best Answers on AskMe before anyone will even notice you pissing.
posted by Kirth Gerson at 10:09 AM on May 7, 2007

"This thread is bad and you should FEEL bad!"
posted by Rhomboid at 10:11 AM on May 7, 2007

Isn't someone going to come along and say that "favorite" should really be called "bookmark"? That's my bookmark part of these threads.
posted by Kwine at 10:13 AM on May 7, 2007 [2 favorites]

"flav-r-pops" should really be called "yuckstalks".
posted by cortex at 10:14 AM on May 7, 2007

Flavor Flav's real name is William Drayton.
posted by box at 10:18 AM on May 7, 2007

Flav-R-Ice, however, is manna from the gods. I lived off of them for one particularly broke week during an unemployed summer.
posted by klangklangston at 10:19 AM on May 7, 2007

It would be more fun if favorites from users that have a lot of favorites counted more. You know, like Google.

I'm still going to say no, though.
posted by teleskiving at 10:19 AM on May 7, 2007

I'd almost go so far as to say that we should get rid of the record on a user page showing number of favorites and number of comments posted. Dropping the number and just having a link to the respective category should be enough.
posted by geoff. at 10:22 AM on May 7, 2007

taking a weak, point-missing jab at presumed motivation makes you look pretty silly, frogan.

Actually, in that instance, I'm just parroting some of the sentiment from one of the previous posts about scoreboard ideas. Sorry, I didn't just dream that one up myself.

/sidenote: it's bad form for moderators to get personal ... being a moderator means you're above the fray. It's part of the job description.
posted by frogan at 10:24 AM on May 7, 2007

Positive rewards for what, though? Many of the most favorited comments are one-liners that don't really add that much to the site.

Here's where I would venture to guess that one-liners make up the bulk of the favorites right now and "stay the course" won't change that either.
posted by frogan at 10:26 AM on May 7, 2007

if you want a better community, you reward it when you see it.

How could we have a better community than this? There are already a bunch of mechanisms in place for "rewarding" good behaviors. There are good reasons not to implement this one. I may be anti-scorecard, but I kicked ass in dodgeball.
posted by jessamyn at 10:26 AM on May 7, 2007 [2 favorites]

Actually, in that instance, I'm just parroting some of the sentiment from one of the previous posts about scoreboard ideas.

When the only context for that is the stuff you remember seeing in the other threads that you don't link to, it's hard to make that connection.

it's bad form for moderators to get personal

That wasn't very personal. Call it bad form if you need to, but your characterization, whether original or regurgitated, earnest or crypto-sarcastic, was weak, seemed to miss the point, and was silly. Doesn't say anything about you as a person, and I've got nothing against you, so apologies if that came off harsher than intended; my aim was rebuttal, not pwn3rship.

As far as staying out the fray, I generally agree that it's a good idea to a degree, admin or otherwise, but there's never been a particularly formal segregation around here, and the grey is kind of normalized to fray level.
posted by cortex at 10:32 AM on May 7, 2007

AskMe: I've recently realized that, by clicking on random user names, I can make an estimate of my position on the non-existent favorites leader board. How large of a sample do I need to estimate my percentile ranking to within 1 percentage point?
posted by Wolfdog at 10:34 AM on May 7, 2007

Sorry, I didn't just dream that one up myself.

Still an asshole thing to say, though. Getting personal for no reason and all that. Plus, the way you framed the argument was just plain stupid. We all want a better community, we just don't think your particular way of rewarding good behavior is the right way to go. No need to be an asshole and bring elementary school into it.
posted by mediareport at 10:36 AM on May 7, 2007

Wolfdog, I'm pretty sure statistical analysis of favorites would be a subject for MetaTalk, not AskMe. It may have already been in MeTa, frankly, but I'm not diggin' it up.
posted by cgc373 at 10:40 AM on May 7, 2007

(Actually, I know how to answer that question. It's just that stats questions are common enough in the green that it isn't hard to imagine this one surfacing sometime in the next few days, possibly in a lightly disguised form.)
posted by Wolfdog at 10:42 AM on May 7, 2007

Also, folks who missed the announcement last month might not be aware you can check "Recent Activity" in your favorites by typing your user number at the end of this url:

http://www.metafilter.com/recent_activity.cfm?user_id=

So if today someone favorites something you posted a year ago, you can easily tell (on your standard favorites page it would get buried in the past comments).
posted by mediareport at 10:42 AM on May 7, 2007

How could we have a better community than this?

Drugs, not hugs.
posted by Brandon Blatcher at 10:57 AM on May 7, 2007 [1 favorite]

Dogs, not blogs.
posted by Floydd at 10:59 AM on May 7, 2007

Moleskines, not foreskins.
posted by cortex at 11:05 AM on May 7, 2007

cats, de clawed.
posted by Stynxno at 11:07 AM on May 7, 2007

old threads reread
posted by cgc373 at 11:09 AM on May 7, 2007

I had a little drink about an hour ago and it went right to my head.
posted by jonmc at 11:22 AM on May 7, 2007

I think you're all number 1.

Except some of you, who I think are number two.
posted by mr_crash_davis at 11:36 AM on May 7, 2007 [2 favorites]

How could we have a better community than this?

Meet up dodgeball: shirts vs skins, boys vs girls.
posted by y2karl at 11:36 AM on May 7, 2007

No, no, no...spin the bottle.
posted by jonmc at 11:39 AM on May 7, 2007

Why not make a page that ranks users based on how many "favorites" their comments, FPPs, and questions garner?

I submit a counterproposal: we should have a page ranking MeFites based on p*n*s length.

Using favorites would be vulgar.
posted by jason's_planet at 12:17 PM on May 7, 2007

My pants are longer than everyone else's!
posted by Kwine at 12:20 PM on May 7, 2007 [1 favorite]

I have pretty short punks, if that matters.
posted by cgc373 at 12:21 PM on May 7, 2007

All of my ponds have a large perimeter in proportion to their surface area.
posted by cortex at 12:26 PM on May 7, 2007 [1 favorite]

Why not make a page that ranks users based on how many "favorites" their comments, FPPs, and questions garner? I'm not sure hard how this would be to create, but it might be a nice incentive to post quality items. Also, it would highlight some of the dedicated, and/or imaginative members of Mefi. Just a thought.

No real offense intended, but I would think that someone--in this case, you--who has garnered nearly 80% of their favorites for a very simple lit question from Hamlet* of all things would understand how uninspiring a notion it is to use favorites as a metric for how funny, intelligent, interesting, or noteworthy someone's posts or comments are. In fact, even the most cursory knowledge of Ask Metafilter would suggest that a vast collection of favorites could be amassed by anyone willing to spend their summer posting inane-but-useful questions every week (or useless-but-bizarrely-or-grotesquely-interesting questions).
posted by The God Complex at 12:32 PM on May 7, 2007

* I love Hamlet, but come on, I first read it in Grade 11, and twice more in university, and "the madness of Hamlet" is probably the thesis for about 19,327 Academic papers. I'm not saying this to insult your intelligence, and I think it's a perfectly acceptable use for AskMe, but it sure as hell indicates that favorites aren't the best metric for tracking imaginative discourse. Hell, I use mine as bookmarks, so...
posted by The God Complex at 12:35 PM on May 7, 2007

I have the perfect solution:

Random user ranking.

Every day, the MeFi Rank Index gets shuffled according to a sufficiently arbitrary formula. Sooner or later, everyone gets to be Number One!

That way, the "MeFi Should Be A Popularity Contest" crowd can have their rankings, and those of us who think all ranking mechanisms are bad will have no moral qualms.

Of course, then the Popularity Contest folks will want to rank MeFites by the number of randomly assigned Number Ones accrued over time, but at least we'll only hear about that after all 2875984jillion users have been cycled. Because, remember, sufficiently arbitrary, amirite?
posted by scrump at 12:46 PM on May 7, 2007

I was picked last, but the captain of the team was both brainier and a better geek than me. Now excuse me while I go cry in my cornflakes.
posted by Firas at 12:47 PM on May 7, 2007

All of my ponds have a large perimeter in proportion to their surface area...
I love Hamlet, but come on...

Hamlet's pal was performing fellatio
And was stunned by his width-to-length ratio.
Quoth the Dane, "I've more girth
Under heaven or earth
Than you've ever dreamt of, Horatio!"
posted by Wolfdog at 12:49 PM on May 7, 2007 [5 favorites]

That's from H.'s tell-all memoirs of the drugs, royalty, and his nude portfolio: Horatio, sans.
posted by cortex at 12:59 PM on May 7, 2007 [1 favorite]

Mention "cake" in a sentence and I'll favorite it.
posted by Dizzy at 1:14 PM on May 7, 2007 [1 favorite]

"If Dizzy favorites this 'cake'-mentioning comment, I'm going to ban him."
posted by cortex at 1:16 PM on May 7, 2007 [1 favorite]

*jumps out of cake*
posted by jonmc at 1:19 PM on May 7, 2007 [1 favorite]

Cake will never be as popular as Shakespearean blowjob limericks.
posted by box at 1:21 PM on May 7, 2007 [1 favorite]

cortex has read too much GEB.
posted by vacapinta at 1:38 PM on May 7, 2007

Speaking of Cake and favorites, I'm pretty annoyed that Last.fm thinks I'm playing Cake, when I'm really playing The Cake. That's a problem, believe you me, and I think mathowie should fix it. Or maybe cortex should cover "Medieval Love". One of the two.
posted by soundofsuburbia at 1:46 PM on May 7, 2007 [1 favorite]

cortex has read too much GEB.

Nonsense.
posted by cortex at 1:49 PM on May 7, 2007 [1 favorite]

(just for the record im gonna go through and favorite every one of y2karls posts)
posted by petsounds at 2:06 PM on May 7, 2007

that way he will have more than anyone, including cortex
posted by petsounds at 2:06 PM on May 7, 2007

Anyways, the answer is that Dizzy should feel free to favorite that comment because cortex put it in quotes which means he is not actually making the statement but quoting it - it is a pile of letters not a statement of intent, per se. And even though Dizzy said he'd only favorite "cake" and not "'cake'", he should favorite it anyways because the addition of quotes to a pile of letters is still a pile of letters. But since Dizzy said he'd favorite mentions of "cake" and not cake, he is free to not favorite jonmc's mention which is a mention of the food not the 4-letter word.
posted by vacapinta at 2:07 PM on May 7, 2007 [1 favorite]

During Juliet's time, you could go down the lane and buy a buck cake.
posted by Firas at 2:11 PM on May 7, 2007 [1 favorite]

This smacks of populism. Who cares what a bunch of your peers think?
Now, having an admin choose it as, say, the best of 1 particular day. That means something.
posted by signal at 2:11 PM on May 7, 2007

Go choke on a bucket of cakes.
posted by slogger at 2:18 PM on May 7, 2007 [1 favorite]

vaca-p---
you talk pretty but I think it is a trap.
Ain't no way I'm crossing cortex.
He killed a dude once.
posted by Dizzy at 2:27 PM on May 7, 2007

Of all the Sodomites, he was the the Sodo-iest.
So when the instruction was given by Claudius-
Though not one to augury defy-
He slid his hands up the thigh,
And Hamlet proved he was the naughtiest.

Although he claimed to love Ophelia,
He often thought fondly of his exposure to pedophilia.
And though he claimed it was just a cheek he kissed,
To not have noticed, the digger would have been remissed,
That Hamlet recognized old Yorkic by his dentalia.
posted by dios at 2:32 PM on May 7, 2007 [1 favorite]

only once?
posted by Kwine at 2:33 PM on May 7, 2007

So is there a place for Hamlet limerick slash fic stuff? Because I want to see more.
posted by dios at 2:35 PM on May 7, 2007

Twice, if you count Tacos.
posted by Dizzy at 2:36 PM on May 7, 2007

metafilter: when her hair is wet, she looks like a 4 year old boy.
posted by quonsar at 2:44 PM on May 7, 2007

quonsar, that was like a GWB-portmanteau of pedo-jokes. For clarity's sake:

Q: What's the best part of having sex with a 10 year old girl in the shower?
A: With her hair wet, she looks like she is 7.

Q: What's the best part of having sex with a 10 year old girl?
A: If you flip her over, she looks like a 10 year old boy.
posted by dios at 2:50 PM on May 7, 2007

Diz-y---
Your weird way of addressing people takes the cake.
posted by Partial Law at 3:00 PM on May 7, 2007 [1 favorite]

What about people like me who sucked at dodgeball AND are likely to be at the bottom of a favorites-based ranking list? What about us, huh?

Won't someone please think of the losers?
posted by Deathalicious at 3:12 PM on May 7, 2007

A dedicated fav-hunter would stop favoriting altogether (and go through and delete old favorites, moving them to del.icio.us or something) if this happened. I mean, logically, every time they favorite something, they're making their own ranking worse, directly or indirectly.

I guess the complete breakdown of the favorites system would just be the icing on the cake.
posted by Many bubbles at 3:29 PM on May 7, 2007 [1 favorite]

I love you all equally. You are all my favorite. Yes, even you.

And, dios: is it just me, or does that second limerick have about eighteen thousand too many syllables?
posted by Benny Andajetz at 4:14 PM on May 7, 2007

Yes, it has too many syllables. I'm not good at limericks. Thanks for pointing out the obvious.
posted by dios at 4:21 PM on May 7, 2007

I mean your meter is just all over the place, man. Yo limerick so fat, it's a sonnet.
posted by cortex at 4:27 PM on May 7, 2007

Doggerel fight!
posted by Abiezer at 4:36 PM on May 7, 2007

cortex should've known better than to bring scansion to a doggerel fight.
posted by mr_crash_davis at 4:39 PM on May 7, 2007 [1 favorite]

Iamb what iamb.
posted by cortex at 4:43 PM on May 7, 2007 [1 favorite]

C Dizzy's response to A this comment may be K illustrative E.
posted by Kwine at 4:51 PM on May 7, 2007 [1 favorite]

In my view of the universe, favorites are a kudo service which only exists to help cut down the number of LOLs.
posted by Citizen Premier at 6:05 PM on May 7, 2007

Also, one of my comments got 31 favorites! AM I POPULAR OR WHAT?
posted by Citizen Premier at 6:07 PM on May 7, 2007

NO SERIOUSLY AM I POPULAR? I NEED TO KNOW NOW!
posted by Citizen Premier at 6:08 PM on May 7, 2007

You're on your way, but you need to take more care of your skin and start doing that coy g-string-shows-above-low-cut-jeans thing.
posted by Firas at 6:12 PM on May 7, 2007

I never look to see which and how many favorites my comments have gotten, except when I'm masturbating and need just that little extra edge to push me over the top.
posted by klangklangston at 6:19 PM on May 7, 2007

Cheaper than coke, anyway.
posted by klangklangston at 6:19 PM on May 7, 2007

Sometimes I weep, but not about favorites.
posted by OmieWise at 6:20 PM on May 7, 2007

You're already the #1 citizen. What do you need popularity for?
posted by Kwine at 6:21 PM on May 7, 2007

Come and listen to my story
I'll tell you no lies
How he never weeps for favorites
Poor little Omie Wise
posted by flapjax at midnite at 6:32 PM on May 7, 2007

Lonely masturbation after snorting is like… well, I don't know what it's like, but it's sad and contradictory. Keep favoriting klangklangston, everyone!
posted by Firas at 7:07 PM on May 7, 2007

O hi
just popped in from the other thread to say that I think Smedleyman wins with 'but'. kthxbye
posted by nowonmai at 7:25 PM on May 7, 2007

need just that little extra edge to push me over the top.

Cheaper than coke, anyway.

I thought coke did exactly the opposite.
posted by jessamyn at 7:38 PM on May 7, 2007

Looks like I need to go back to favoriting myself again!
posted by miss lynnster at 7:45 PM on May 7, 2007 [2 favorites]

Doing anything to "rank users" is a bad idea.

Well, crap, then how will we know who to stone at the end of the month?
posted by The Deej at 7:58 PM on May 7, 2007

scheider :walks backwards into pilot house, stunned look on his face. Mouth agape, cigarrette dangles precariously. "We're gonna need a bigger cake.."
posted by vronsky at 8:10 PM on May 7, 2007 [1 favorite]

currently one comment about politics makes up about a third of my favorited total.

it kind of depresses me since it ended up being mildly humorous, but i'd originally written it basically out of despondency.
posted by spiderwire at 9:07 PM on May 7, 2007

(of course i originally thought of it as a dialogue where hunter s. thompson welcomes kurt vonnegut to writer's heaven and tells him about all the ways he's been fucking with the world since he's been there, but that was just way too morbid.)
posted by spiderwire at 9:08 PM on May 7, 2007

MetaFilter: where all the users are rank, all the women are strong, all the men are em and all the children blink.
posted by wendell at 9:22 PM on May 7, 2007 [2 favorites]

my aim was rebuttal, not pwn3rship.

I'd just like to mention that I like the word 'pwn3rship' a lot.
posted by stavrosthewonderchicken at 10:40 PM on May 7, 2007

I just stumbled upon this post and I am very dismayed to see that there is NO mention of jonson anywhere here. What the fuck, people? Nearly 2000 goddamn favorites. I'm in a VERY RARE class of superstars, how are more of you not aware of this? Do I need to make a T-shirt??!?!?!?
posted by jonson at 10:57 PM on May 7, 2007

The licensing fees are very reasonable, stavros.

And retroactive.
posted by cortex at 10:58 PM on May 7, 2007

Do I need to make a T-shirt??!?!?!?

What you need is a gold star next to your nick, there.
jonson, seriously, if it makes you feel any better, I wondered while reading this thread how the topic of fave-whores came up and you weren't mentioned.
All of this favoriting talk here but what it comes down to is simply jonson-measuring. Who has favorited jonson the most?
posted by carsonb at 11:10 PM on May 7, 2007

I want a gold star! Dammit, I demand one.

Nah.
posted by miss lynnster at 11:23 PM on May 7, 2007

miss lynnster, you're always gold to me!!!
posted by Firas at 11:34 PM on May 7, 2007

Incidentally, while we're chatting, I enthusiastically endorse and subscribe to the basic idea you've been propounding lately re: that the mindset of an extreme fundamentalist or nationalist in context A is an exact mirror of that of the people he most hates in context B (and that, dropped in context B, he'd have grown to be exactly what he hates.) I take it a step further here.
posted by Firas at 11:47 PM on May 7, 2007

Without starting yet another Meta I'd just like to apologize for hurting MetaFilter since I can't do it in the original thread. I meant no harm and was only foolin' around. Sorry all. I promise all of my posts from now on will rise to my normal mediocre standards.
posted by Deathalicious at 2:43 AM on May 8, 2007

GUYS I'M ONLY 1 AWAY FROM HAVING 100 FAVORITES! LET'S CELEBRATE!



...guys?
posted by Citizen Premier at 3:05 AM on May 8, 2007 [1 favorite]

You said it in a much more intellectual way than I do, but yeah, that's my basic insight. Although the concept is lost on a lot of people, probably because it focuses on human nature being the same around the world instead of different which is inconvenient. (Harder to despise foreigners when you accept that maybe they're kinda like you.)

And fret not, Deathalicious. It's all good. Al hamdu lillah. ;)
posted by miss lynnster at 7:39 AM on May 8, 2007

"Who has favorited jonson the most?"

Rich Gannon?
posted by mr_crash_davis at 8:36 AM on May 8, 2007 [1 favorite]

OK. Jeff Gannon makes a lot more sense there.
posted by mr_crash_davis at 9:43 AM on May 8, 2007

See, mcd, you messed up. If you want to make an edgy Gannon comment, there is apparently some rule (or *point* to the practice) that you need to write "Gannon/Guckert" for full effect.
posted by dios at 9:51 AM on May 8, 2007

hurf ganondorf jonson favoriter
posted by cortex at 9:55 AM on May 8, 2007

OK. Jeff Gannon makes a lot more sense there.

Nah. Rich Gannon was a Viking, a Chief, AND a Raider.

IYKWIM.

AITYD.
posted by dersins at 11:07 AM on May 8, 2007

ADHD FTW
posted by y2karl at 11:31 AM on May 8, 2007

Doing anything to "rank users" is a bad idea.

"rank users"

heh heh.
posted by flotson at 11:59 PM on May 8, 2007