whose favorites?

June 13, 2007 1:07 PM

Fantasy feature: hover over "x users marked this as a favorite" and see the names of the people who did the favorite marking. Whaddaya think?
posted by serazin to Feature Requests at 1:07 PM (51 comments total)

Matt, do you ever feel like the the father of thousands of whiney children who, when you get home from work at the end of the day, jump up and down and dig through your pockets asking you "What did you bring me? What did you bring me?"

Sorry to add to the whiney children vibe, but if this was an easy feature to install, I would enjoy using it.
posted by serazin at 1:09 PM on June 13, 2007

I favorited this (so you don't have to hover to find that out)
posted by John Kenneth Fisher at 1:13 PM on June 13, 2007

We've had the request before and doing a db lookup to populate a title tag that few would use isn't worth it.
posted by mathowie (staff) at 1:13 PM on June 13, 2007

This seems like a bad idea. Why would you need to know who specifically favorited you? Isn't getting it enough? We already have problems with people using past comments to hound others; I think putting names to the favorites would just result in similar uses.
posted by Sangermaine at 1:15 PM on June 13, 2007

Why would you need to know who specifically favorited you?

They already have names. You click on it to see them. The request is to make it so you can just hover and not click.
posted by smackfu at 1:25 PM on June 13, 2007

No offense, but that may be the laziest feature request I've seen yet.
posted by languagehat at 1:37 PM on June 13, 2007

I'm sure there have been lazier ones. I think this is a cool idea.
posted by chunking express at 1:41 PM on June 13, 2007

We don't have time for this, languagehat. You need to get back in the Brian B./Scientology thread and boost, man! There's very little time! BOOST!
posted by cgc373 at 1:41 PM on June 13, 2007

No offense, but that may be the laziest feature request I've seen yet.

Matt, can I have a feature where you just come over to my house and read Metafilter to me while I sit on my couch eating cheetos? And then could you get me a beer? You know, if it's convenient.
posted by buriednexttoyou at 1:46 PM on June 13, 2007 [2 favorites]

Matt, can I have a pony? No, a real pony. I'm too lazy to mow my lawn.
posted by It's Raining Florence Henderson at 1:57 PM on June 13, 2007

I like it. Can we revisit this in 10 years when db lookups are cheaper?
posted by hoverboards don't work on water at 1:58 PM on June 13, 2007

that may be the laziest feature request I've seen yet

Could be done a lot lazier:

"hey, someone get me those names or whatever, laters"
posted by cortex (staff) at 1:58 PM on June 13, 2007

How about a tab on the favorites pages that sorts names by frequency? That way I could see whom I favorite the most and vice versa.
posted by hydrophonic at 2:02 PM on June 13, 2007 [3 favorites]

We've had the request before and doing a db lookup to populate a title tag that few would use isn't worth it.

That gives me an idea for another feature request: a list of already rejected feature requests. To prevent threads like this one.
posted by scottreynen at 2:15 PM on June 13, 2007 [1 favorite]

scottreynen: "....That gives me an idea for another feature request: a list of already rejected feature requests. To prevent threads like this one."

Possibly the best feature request I've ever heard.
posted by JMOZ at 2:21 PM on June 13, 2007

What if mathowie rejects the feature request for a list of already–rejected feature requests? Where would that rejected feature be listed?
posted by cgc373 at 2:21 PM on June 13, 2007

And by "heard," I mean "read." I'm not lazy enough to have the text-to-speech going like SOME PEOPLE. (accusing glance)
posted by JMOZ at 2:22 PM on June 13, 2007

I would like to be able to hover over existing and nonexisting feature to see if it has been rejected or not.

That, or badidea.metafilter.com, with a single MetaFilter front page mockup containing every bad idea ever.

doesn't mean THIS idea is bad, I'm just curious to see what it'd look like
posted by davejay at 2:36 PM on June 13, 2007

badidea.metafilter.com
posted by cortex (staff) at 2:38 PM on June 13, 2007 [2 favorites]

I would like to be able to hover over (and reject) users. Like God, only visible.
posted by mr_crash_davis at 2:39 PM on June 13, 2007

Also, if there were some way that Matt could commission MeFi respirators that would automatically dispense a small amount of a euphoric every time somebody favorited one of our comments, that would be great.
posted by felix betachat at 2:40 PM on June 13, 2007

Call me stupid, but couldn't this be done in an AJAXy way that would avoid the DB lookups unless people actually used the feature?
posted by teleskiving at 2:40 PM on June 13, 2007

That gives me an idea for another feature request: a list of already rejected feature requests.

I second this request.
posted by languagehat at 2:41 PM on June 13, 2007

So, just to be clear, everyone thinks this is a really super idea right?
posted by serazin at 2:42 PM on June 13, 2007

That gives me an idea for another feature request: a list of already rejected feature requests

Would the ability to add favorites from "Recent Activity" be on that list? And maybe flagging as well?
posted by teleskiving at 2:45 PM on June 13, 2007

I for one welcome^W think this is a good idea. As for the db hit, you're doing a hit to get the # of comments, just modify the query, no? Otherwise you totally could do an ajax action that only hits on hover.
posted by Skorgu at 2:47 PM on June 13, 2007

i like the idea, personally.. had the same thought myself a few weeks ago.
posted by sergeant sandwich at 2:50 PM on June 13, 2007

Matt, can I have a feature where you just come over to my house and read Metafilter to me while I sit on my couch eating cheetos? And then could you get me a beer? You know, if it's convenient.

He's not feeding you the cheetos? That totally smacks of effort, dude.
posted by Blazecock Pileon at 2:51 PM on June 13, 2007

This metatalk feature request was previously brought to you by me! And it was shot down (albeit politely) back then, last december. Ho hum.
posted by kev23f at 3:03 PM on June 13, 2007

Can we look at this through the accessibility-glasses? Is it a bad idea? Would it help visually-impaired peopel to navigate the site? Does it make me look fat?
posted by blue_beetle at 3:17 PM on June 13, 2007

A compromise would be to make the "users who have favorited this" page AJAX instead. So you would still have to click, but it wouldn't send you to another page.

Like the flagging/favorites work.
posted by smackfu at 3:17 PM on June 13, 2007

flagging/favorites don't send back a ton of data, just a tiny short 3-4 word message. If 20 people added something as a favorite, it'd be a messy thing to show.

Is it really that hard to simply click the link then click back after you've read the page? It seems like such a minor inconvenience to click the back button.
posted by mathowie (staff) at 3:19 PM on June 13, 2007

It seems like such a minor inconvenience to click the back button.

Maybe for you. I run a multi-screen setup, with a screen in every room, so I have a bit of internet throughout my house. Unfortunately (admittedly due to some poor planning on my part) my back button is in the basement, so I almost never use it.
posted by scottreynen at 3:50 PM on June 13, 2007 [3 favorites]

onhover="window.location.href=this.href"
posted by Plutor at 3:55 PM on June 13, 2007

OK, how bout this: In the Recent Activity view, howz about we show the number of favorites, like in the regular view?

(And by "we" I mean "Matt.")
posted by The Deej at 4:04 PM on June 13, 2007

Can we have a feature where mathowie invents a hover board, like the one in Back to the Future 2, and then sells me one? I would like that feature. It would be my favorite!
posted by ORthey at 4:11 PM on June 13, 2007

onhover="window.location.href=this.href"

Ha! That would certainly be worse.
posted by smackfu at 5:03 PM on June 13, 2007

How about a widget that plays a little sample, this one perhaps (nsfw audio), every time someone favorites something of mine?
posted by eyeballkid at 5:32 PM on June 13, 2007

if you can cache the number of favorites, you should be able to cache the usernames somewhere, too, right? there's no need to hit the database every time.

however, it seems like the feature (implemented this way at least) would add a lot of unnecessary HTML that i could do without, so i'd be against it anyway.
posted by spiderwire at 6:28 PM on June 13, 2007

Hover titles are terrible because they have no functionality. Unless you happen to know the usernames of everyone who favorited a thread/comment, the information is useless on its own. The usernames need profile links to actually be useful, and those titles won't give you that.

I do like the AJAX idea, though.
posted by mkultra at 6:30 PM on June 13, 2007

I'd like a feature that involves the hot men of MeFi showing up at my house on a rotational schedule in order to give me massages, cook my supper, and talk to me about the best of the web.
posted by orange swan at 7:49 PM on June 13, 2007 [1 favorite]

And I want it now.
posted by orange swan at 8:04 PM on June 13, 2007

NOW.
posted by orange swan at 8:04 PM on June 13, 2007

sorry, orange swan - they are all at my house right now.
posted by madamjujujive at 8:38 PM on June 13, 2007

Yeah, but you're next. I have to say, though, most of them will be pretty worn out by the time they get to your place (well, it is madamjujujive, after all), so you may wish to widen your request to include the "not-hot-but-not-quite-ugly-men-of-MeFi" because there are a lot more of those to go around.

*packs bag, waits by door hopefully*
posted by dg at 9:30 PM on June 13, 2007

"Hot" is a subjective term!
posted by orange swan at 10:25 PM on June 13, 2007

I love the idea, but understand that there are much better things to spend time on.
posted by hootch at 10:36 PM on June 13, 2007

Well, I can't think of many better things to spend time on that pleasuring orange swan. YMMV, of course.
posted by dg at 10:51 PM on June 13, 2007

If you change your mind and do this, Matt, could we also have a little pop-up to see who's hovering?
posted by weapons-grade pandemonium at 11:24 PM on June 13, 2007

eyeballkid writes 'How about a widget that plays a little sample, this one perhaps (nsfw audio), every time someone favorites something of mine?'

I like your thinking, but can we have this same widget linked up to some teledildonics please?
posted by PeterMcDermott at 11:48 PM on June 13, 2007

Late to the game here but I gotta chip in:

How much freakin' data do we really wanna shift in the name of MeFi? The quality of discussion and links has remained more or less the same, but there's an order of magnitude more data being sent in each page view.

Damn kids and their fancy new automobiles, anyway. A steady 5mph in horse-drawn carriage was plenty fast back in my day! Why, a human can't even live at speeds faster than 20mph!
posted by five fresh fish at 11:27 PM on June 14, 2007