I like to complain.

July 16, 2007 4:58 PM

Is there room for personal preference in the "users close to you box"?
posted by dame to Feature Requests at 4:58 PM (53 comments total)

Living in NYC, the users closest to me is useless, and I'd rather not have to click onto another page to find any of the New Yorkers I know. At the same time, I realize other people don't have that problem. Can't we make it work for everyone?
posted by dame at 4:59 PM on July 16, 2007

Well, we could ban a lot of New Yorkers okay I'm not helping

What do you have in mind, re: personal preference?
posted by cortex (staff) at 5:06 PM on July 16, 2007

if you really want a good handle on who lives where, get google earth and the metafilter kml
posted by Mach5 at 5:11 PM on July 16, 2007

Just to be able to choose the number displayed. I don't need people 38 miles out, but 4 to 5 miles out would be nice. As it is, the number doesn't even cover 1 mile.

We could also ban New Yorkers, as long as I could choose which ones.
posted by dame at 5:11 PM on July 16, 2007

Also, I don't need to know who lives where. I just like to be able to navigate to pages from my own with less rigamarole. When you are stealing unrealiable internet, every page load counts!
posted by dame at 5:14 PM on July 16, 2007

Just to be able to choose the number displayed.

Yeah, we were actually (literally, at a booth in a pub) discussing that yesterday. Ideally, support for both 'x nearest users' and 'users within y miles'. Not exactly at the top of the queue, but it's on The List.
posted by cortex (staff) at 5:16 PM on July 16, 2007

dame (4 miles)
*waves*
posted by Mach5 at 5:17 PM on July 16, 2007

Yep, like cortex says it's on the "to do" list. For me getting ten users means that they're not all even in the same state, much less the same neighborhood, so it would be great to be able to set some preferences so that people in populated and empty areas can all get decent use from the feature.
posted by jessamyn (staff) at 5:22 PM on July 16, 2007

Could we maybe up the number while we wait then? It is a little, erm, draconian right now, no?

Waves back. Moves Mach5 off potential ban list.
posted by dame at 5:23 PM on July 16, 2007

Could we maybe up the number while we wait then?

You can click through to the full list on the next page. For almost everyone it's not a list that changes so frequently that this represents a huge inconvenience.
posted by jessamyn (staff) at 5:26 PM on July 16, 2007

It is more of an inconvenience than having a slightly larger box to ignore?
posted by dame at 5:29 PM on July 16, 2007

Are you still mad I was right about the AskMe limits? Because those were draconian too.
posted by dame at 5:30 PM on July 16, 2007

...
posted by cortex (staff) at 5:34 PM on July 16, 2007

dame, the problem was that people in major cities had 300+ nearby users showing, which was about three times as long as their own user details, so I moved to instead just showing ten up front with a link to more.

Previously, it was a fairly ugly sized box and I only looked at it once in a blue moon, so I figured this new way would accommodate both the people with a zillion nearby folks and provide a way to browse it once in a while without getting in the way.

A preference could be added down the line, yeah.
posted by mathowie (staff) at 5:57 PM on July 16, 2007

There are no other MetaFilter members nearby, sorry.

I don't live in the middle of nowhere. Can I at least adopt a New Yorker or two? (Jonmc and pips, I'm looking at you.)
posted by konolia at 6:05 PM on July 16, 2007

Ooh, if we get to adopt mefites, this could be fun!

Or maybe we can have auctions, and put them up on a stage without their shirts, with their chests all oiled up and...
sorry, was that out loud?
posted by misha at 6:25 PM on July 16, 2007 [1 favorite]

while we're at it, can the lat/long get request in the user profile have the following added: "&z=10"?

I'm not very good at geography, and so I have to manually zoom in, which is tiresome, especially when all I really want to know is whether or not it is feasible for me to punch* that user in the face within the next ten minutes.

*ha ha, sorry, i meant 'fist hug'
posted by fishfucker at 6:28 PM on July 16, 2007

damn it, misha, your small text and use of the word 'sorry' makes it look like our parenthetical gags are related, but they're not.
posted by fishfucker at 6:30 PM on July 16, 2007

How about "Show my 10 closest contacts" as an option?
posted by Eideteker at 6:53 PM on July 16, 2007

Admit it, dame, you're just pissed because it's listing us New Jersey folk as being "close" to you, when you want the list to contain other Brooklynites ;)
posted by cyrusdogstar at 6:58 PM on July 16, 2007

"Show the closest 10 Mefites I could con into helping me paint."
posted by It's Raining Florence Henderson at 7:05 PM on July 16, 2007

It's Raining Tom Sawyer!
posted by amro at 7:13 PM on July 16, 2007 [1 favorite]

I live in Philadelphia. I have an ideal number of users near me. The box is neither too sparse nor too crowded. I have a huge cock. Everything is perfect.
posted by Mister_A at 7:36 PM on July 16, 2007

Here it is.
posted by Mister_A at 7:37 PM on July 16, 2007

Well, we could ban a lot of New Yorkers

no, papa, nooooo...
posted by jonmc at 7:40 PM on July 16, 2007

Hey, you know what sucks? How bout,

Dear Metafilter - where can I find a good orthopedist in Manhattan? Dear Metafilter - I live in New York and need a dog-sitter this weekend, preferably someone who's good with small, yapper type dogs. NYCfilter: good martini bar in midtown? Needed: NYC courier who delivers sushi this afternoon. AskMe - needed - a decent upholsterer who works on early victorian era sofas in yorkville. Dear Askme, my girlfriend is thinking about getting a job in the Bronx, any success finding subleasers in that area? NYCfilter: I'm trying to sell my yacht but my slip is at the NYYC and they won't let me transfer the license, please help!

Or how bout you people have another eleventy billion f'ing meetups? Right?

For those of us who live in the fucking woods, that little bar at the bottom of our user page is the only link we have with any semblance or sense of geographic community. And what? You have TOO MANY mefites living near you? I have, like, five. So damn you! Damn you big city mefites and your constant askme questions about your dumb cities! WHERE CAN I FIND SOME DAMN SUSHI IN KALAMAZOO? HUH?? WHERE?!!??

same goes for you, portland.
posted by Baby_Balrog at 7:59 PM on July 16, 2007 [2 favorites]

There are no other MetaFilter members nearby, sorry.

Ummmmm... yaaaaaa... can we work on that please?
posted by The Deej at 8:58 PM on July 16, 2007

The Google map satellite thingy never works for me. I like in Sherman Oaks, but mathowie's telling me I live in the 310. I didn't move all the way to Fuck Angeles to live in Harbor City, y'all.
posted by dhammond at 9:02 PM on July 16, 2007

Is the kml file up to date?
posted by jouke at 9:43 PM on July 16, 2007

dhammond: that's a deliberate policy by the Dept of Homeland Security. If the terrorists, Iranians, Pakistanis etc feel like taking out strategic targets, they'll miss if the maps are deliberately out. Just hope that there aren't any tasty targets in Harbour City.
posted by UbuRoivas at 9:49 PM on July 16, 2007

I'd like to be able to set it to show everyone in my country rather than just people living somewhat close to me. Then I'd actually set a location in my profile, probably with fudged co-ordinates because you don't need to know anything beyond what city I live in. Being able to set a diameter for the 'near you' circle would do this, I'm pretty sure I can include Invercargill while excluding Australia.
posted by shelleycat at 11:07 PM on July 16, 2007

I have a huge cock. Everything is perfect.

Just goes to show how relative everything is, our own subjective realities, eye of the beholder, blah blah blah...

Glad you're happy with it, Mister_A!
posted by Meatbomb at 11:09 PM on July 16, 2007

dame, the problem was that people in major cities had 300+ nearby users showing, which was about three times as long as their own user details, so I moved to instead just showing ten up front with a link to more.

I understand that. But 500 to 10 is a pretty big cut. So in the meantime, would it be horrible to have like 30?
posted by dame at 6:11 AM on July 17, 2007

But you can get to the full list in one click. If "in the meantime" means "until a proper user option preference is set up", why not just click through to the full list if you need to go neighbor-hunting?
posted by cortex (staff) at 6:39 AM on July 17, 2007

Because then I have to wait for both pages to load when I am stealing Internet. And it makes me feel unloved. I am apparently the only one with this problem, though, so I suppose I shall suffer.

*Places hand upon brow. Sighs.*
posted by dame at 7:29 AM on July 17, 2007

Attagirl.
posted by cortex (staff) at 7:50 AM on July 17, 2007

same goes for you, portland.

It's not that we're a big city. We're not. Really. It's just that our awesomeness is all out of proportion to our size.

I'm just sayin'.
posted by dersins at 8:06 AM on July 17, 2007 [1 favorite]

What he said. You know how to solve the whole Being Jealous About the Frequency and Awesomeness of Portland Meetups thing?

Move to Portland!
posted by cortex (staff) at 8:20 AM on July 17, 2007

Because then I have to wait for both pages to load when I am stealing Internet.

So bookmark the page with the full nearby users list. Or use your browser auto complete. Here, I'll even give you the link: http://www.metafilter.com/usersnear/17477
posted by skynxnex at 8:49 AM on July 17, 2007

Can you make me feel loved, too?
posted by dame at 9:39 AM on July 17, 2007

*selects "Loves dame" radio button*
posted by It's Raining Florence Henderson at 9:41 AM on July 17, 2007

Radio button?! I would have though a combo would have been needed for the added flexibility and complexity love entails, as seen recently in MetaTalk.
posted by skynxnex at 9:45 AM on July 17, 2007

Hey, everybody, Cortex says we can move in with him! I'm there.
posted by misha at 10:58 AM on July 17, 2007

I would like it if the 10 or 30 or X metafilterers closest to me were measured by some criteria other than geographic. Maybe closest emotionally, or by body-mass index so I could borrow your clothes before a big date, and then I'd totally spill bbq sauce on your nice sweater and you'd be all "why did you even take a girl to a rib joint on a first date?" and then I'd remind you that you took the chick from your office to the Chevy's in Times Square and you would just sigh loudly like it wasn't even the same thing, not even close, and we would forget all about it for like a month until you saw me leaving for work with some dry cleaning over my shoulder and you said "hey, did you ever get that sweater cleaned like you said you would?" and I would have no idea what you were talking about, and we'd have to rehash the whole thing, and while I was standing in line at the cleaners I'd realize that like the last 6 girls I've dated have been punchlines.
posted by sonofslim at 11:10 AM on July 17, 2007

jouke - it must not be up to date, because I don't appear in it (I joined MeFi in Jan 07, and I had my old lat/long in my profile until July 07, when I moved and updated my lat/long).
posted by desjardins at 11:18 AM on July 17, 2007

yeah, exactly desjardins. A lot of dutch known mefites are not to be found either.
I wonder wether we can have the KML file generated monthly or so.
That would certainly enable this kind of DYI geographical mefi-base scouring.
posted by jouke at 12:33 PM on July 17, 2007

There are no other MetaFilter members nearby, sorry.
Ummmmm... yaaaaaa... can we work on that please?
posted by The Deej at 11:58 PM on July 16 [+] [!]

TheDeej, that's easy... Move ... NYC seems popular for some reason.

Easy solution for dame too: stop stealing Internet.

stealing Internet is another luxury we don't haave out in the sticks that I am tired of hearing people in big cities complain about. :)
posted by terrapin at 2:21 PM on July 17, 2007

I had the cable people out here twice--twice!--and they couldn't do it. But everyone around me has it.
posted by dame at 3:17 PM on July 17, 2007

I'd probably ask "everyone" how they got it, then. Some of these cable people are useless if the configuration is unusual in any way.
posted by misha at 4:48 PM on July 17, 2007

Well there's your problem, dame: There is no cable!
posted by It's Raining Florence Henderson at 4:51 PM on July 17, 2007

TheDeej, that's easy... Move ... NYC seems popular for some reason.

Well sure it's popular. That's where all the people are.
posted by The Deej at 7:52 PM on July 17, 2007

There is no spoon.
posted by misha at 7:53 PM on July 17, 2007

It's not that we're a big city. We're not. Really. It's just that our awesomeness is all out of proportion to our size.

I'm just sayin'.

Amen brother! See you Monday?
posted by hyperlith at 7:59 PM on July 21, 2007