Comments on: I guess I could google-cache the page for "Jessamyn"...

I guess I could google-cache the page for "Jessamyn"...

allkindsoftime — Mon, 03 Sep 2007 06:07:15 -0800

MeTa-pony-request: Can we highlight the mods' responses in MeTa threads? [MI]

By: allkindsoftime

allkindsoftime — Mon, 03 Sep 2007 06:07:59 -0800

Take this one, for instance. It took me more than a little scrolling to locate the actual answer to the question, and if I had perchance missed it, I had only 180-some comments to sort through. Sometimes its easier to see their response but sometimes (no call-outs, just sayin') it turns fairly chatty before the mods make it there with their clarification/ruling/etc..

I'm plenty open to different methods for formatting the call-out, but I'd guess it would be something similar to the best-answer function on AskMe. Maybe an optional function that the mod could use when directly answering the orig question... Thoughts?

By: jessamyn

jessamyn — Mon, 03 Sep 2007 06:10:57 -0800

It's not a bad idea, though I think there is also a Greasemonkey script that does this iirc.

By: gomichild

gomichild — Mon, 03 Sep 2007 06:17:02 -0800

Maybe the mod responses can blink!

By: Partial Law

Partial Law — Mon, 03 Sep 2007 06:17:37 -0800

Indeed, it's a feature of MeFi Navigator.

By: Brittanie

Brittanie — Mon, 03 Sep 2007 06:27:59 -0800

I totally agree, I was wondering the same thing about that exact same thread.

By: carsonb

carsonb — Mon, 03 Sep 2007 06:29:09 -0800

I like it now that mathowie, jessamyn, and cortex get the emails whenever a MeTa thread is posted. It usually means they are one of the first responses in the thread (like here :). However, when they're not you're right—it can be difficult to locate their responses without reading the entire thread. Instead, I do CTRL-F pagesearch for their usernames. While it is not as precise as highlighting moderator responses, it doesn't involve more work for the site admins nor does it require you to install anything extra on your computer.

By: allkindsoftime

allkindsoftime — Mon, 03 Sep 2007 06:33:55 -0800

I guess that works, carsonb, thanks.

By: carsonb

carsonb — Mon, 03 Sep 2007 06:35:51 -0800

Always happy to offer the low-tech solution. Peace.

By: Eideteker

Eideteker — Mon, 03 Sep 2007 06:42:28 -0800

Firefox allows you to do this. Just type in a name (or any word, really), and it will go right to that name. Ctrl-G to scroll through subsequent instances.

By: taz

taz — Mon, 03 Sep 2007 06:42:57 -0800

MeFi navigator page says it "Works with Firefox 1.5 (not 1.0.7)". Is anyone using it in more recent FF versions?

By: Jofus

Jofus — Mon, 03 Sep 2007 06:50:15 -0800

Can we add the line "People who don't have the MeFi Navigator are teh gay" to the FAQ page?

By: jessamyn

jessamyn — Mon, 03 Sep 2007 06:51:44 -0800

Can we add the line "People who don't have the MeFi Navigator are teh gay" to the FAQ page?

No?

By: Partial Law

Partial Law — Mon, 03 Sep 2007 07:02:36 -0800

Is anyone using it in more recent FF versions?

Yes.

By: cortex

cortex — Mon, 03 Sep 2007 07:17:59 -0800

No?

Pfft. Ghey.

By: Brandon Blatcher

Brandon Blatcher — Mon, 03 Sep 2007 07:19:01 -0800

Yeah, just doing a find on the admin's names works for me.

Also, highlighting each mods response, even if only in MeTa, is overkill, as it seems to make their responses more important, which is fine for most MeTa stuff, but the occasional joke would also be highlight, which is just silly. Sure, they could stop making jokes or puns, but that would losing something to gain...what, that a simple page find wouldn't cure.

By: allkindsoftime

allkindsoftime — Mon, 03 Sep 2007 07:20:51 -0800

Pfft. Grey.

By: matthewr

matthewr — Mon, 03 Sep 2007 07:22:12 -0800

taz, it works with any version of Firefox newer than 1.0.7.

By: octothorpe

octothorpe — Mon, 03 Sep 2007 07:28:44 -0800

taz: "MeFi navigator page says it "Works with Firefox 1.5 (not 1.0.7)". Is anyone using it in more recent FF versions?"

Runs fine on 2.0.0.6

By: taz

taz — Mon, 03 Sep 2007 07:39:48 -0800

Thanks, you guys - I'll try it out.

By: dobbs

dobbs — Mon, 03 Sep 2007 07:41:54 -0800

I'd like this feature as well.

By: nowonmai

nowonmai — Mon, 03 Sep 2007 07:53:06 -0800

Why not just delete all the unhelpful quips and non-sequiturs from MeTa threads? Then it will be easy to find the sensible answers to queries.
Highlighting mods' answers in this thread would disclose gems such as this and this, which are not more valuable than answers from Partial Law or Eideteker.
Signal-to-noise is a big problem in MeTa, to the extent that it is all but impossible to discuss anything sensibly, but this is not the solution.

By: Kickstart70

Kickstart70 — Mon, 03 Sep 2007 08:18:40 -0800

If there was an ascii representation of their mod status on their posts (ie. "posted by mathowie (mod) at 12:20 AM"), then we could do a search for that and find any of the mod's posts in the thread, not just one.

By: djgh

djgh — Mon, 03 Sep 2007 08:32:19 -0800

I'm happy to rely on cmd-f for this.

By: mathowie

mathowie — Mon, 03 Sep 2007 08:47:42 -0800

we usually pop in early to answer, but it was a holiday weekend here in the states and we were all in and out for hours and missed the first 179 comments (when I saw it, it was about 10 comments after jessamyn's answer).

By: Brandon Blatcher

Brandon Blatcher — Mon, 03 Sep 2007 08:49:48 -0800

The really important question here is what color would the highlighting be? red? orange? pink flamingo? ocean mist?

By: Jofus

Jofus — Mon, 03 Sep 2007 09:14:44 -0800

Misty Buff!

By: rkent

rkent — Mon, 03 Sep 2007 09:30:15 -0800

Signal-to-noise is a big problem in MeTa,

No! MeTa is the only place where threads completely filled with noise are not a problem. AskMe threads are pared to the bone with extreme prejudice, and noisy comments are flagged/deleted commonly on the blue and replaced with a "take it to MeTa" directive.

Really, most times when there's a serious question, like a feature request or a "how should I...", at least the first couple dozen comments, and typically the bulk of the thread, are substantive and on-point such that the topic gets sufficiently debated. As for lame call-out threads... how serious can you expect them to remain?

By: jmd82

jmd82 — Mon, 03 Sep 2007 09:32:05 -0800

This request reminds me of the WoW forums where GM posts are in blue instead of the default color. The only issue with this is the threads soon start revolving solely around GM comments instead of the content at hand. Granted, you're dealing with a different population in WoW, but I wonder if the same thing would happen here- people just look for mod-marked comments and ignore the rest.

By: nowonmai

nowonmai — Mon, 03 Sep 2007 09:32:15 -0800

No! MeTa is the only place where threads completely filled with noise are not a problem.
Hence this thread.

By: gwint

gwint — Mon, 03 Sep 2007 10:10:23 -0800

It's not a bad idea. I first encountered this on Mark Pilgrim's site and it works well-- not so much for skipping right to an admin comment (searching works better for that, as described above) but when you're scanning a 100+ comment thread, it's useful to see quickly where the admin comments are without having to read each name at the end of each comment first.

By: Chuckles

Chuckles — Mon, 03 Sep 2007 10:19:18 -0800

This seems a lot like a rehashing of the A hiatus isn't a moratorium thread. In that, to have moderator comments automatically made special misses the point of flatness, self policing, community site, and etc.

By: univac

univac — Mon, 03 Sep 2007 10:21:17 -0800

"teh gay" is teh anti-gay.

By: Mitheral

Mitheral — Mon, 03 Sep 2007 11:51:13 -0800

Maybe they could code up avatars too so that we can find anyone with a quick skim instead of actually having to make the effort to read the site.

By: thinman

thinman — Mon, 03 Sep 2007 11:57:42 -0800

I considered making this very pony request in response to the same thread allkindsoftime references. I think it is a good idea. I don't buy that adding this feature would make the site less egalitarian or something; it isn't all that egalitarian to begin with. We're not self-policing... we're 40000 snitches feeding tips to three cops.

By: languagehat

languagehat — Mon, 03 Sep 2007 13:04:56 -0800

Terrible idea. A non-solution to a non-problem. Why do you want to gather at the mods' feet and wait for their pearls of wisdom? If you need to find mathowie's comments, search on "mathowie." To have his comments glowing and throwing off sparks would be silly and insulting. Talk about yer personality cult.

By: stavrosthewonderchicken

stavrosthewonderchicken — Mon, 03 Sep 2007 13:38:54 -0800

No! MeTa is the only place where threads completely filled with noise are not a problem.

That may be your impression, but I'd suggest that it's just as annoying and counterproductive here as anywhere else. Because a thread can be a jocular cokcbukketfest of japery and circlejerking doesn't mean it should be.

Also, what LH said, but less crankily. The more Metatalk veers more toward and toward 'callout metality' and the kind of noise that rkent suggests is welcome and away from the userbase actually trying to figure out what's best for the site (and therefore letting everything fall onto the shoulders of the Moderators up in the Metaheaven), the worse for the site and more counter to its underlying ethos, I reckon.

If anything, the mods comments on policy should appear in really small type in a really hard-to-read grey.

By: stavrosthewonderchicken

stavrosthewonderchicken — Mon, 03 Sep 2007 13:42:38 -0800

We're not self-policing... we're 40000 snitches feeding tips to three cops.

There's some truth to that -- and I still have the suspicion I did at the time that silent moderation (although we've since gotten a public 'mod up' to match the invisible 'mod down'), though useful for the actual moderators, is and has been the worst thing for the ethos of the site since the invention of the low-fat pancake.

By: stavrosthewonderchicken

stavrosthewonderchicken — Mon, 03 Sep 2007 13:44:22 -0800

...the introduction of silent moderation...

By: languagehat

languagehat — Mon, 03 Sep 2007 14:26:59 -0800

Wonderchicken, are you accusing me of crankiness?? It's on, clucker! Shaken-up beers at five paces, and may the wettest man buy the next round!

By: flapjax at midnite

flapjax at midnite — Mon, 03 Sep 2007 15:48:08 -0800

*takes ringside seat at MeFi beerfight of the century*

By: ranglin

ranglin — Mon, 03 Sep 2007 16:52:28 -0800

I'd love to see MefiNavigator made a standard part of the site... It not only highlights the mod comments, but also comments by the original poster and by yourself...

It also has navigation arrows to allow you to jump between all comments for a particular poster...

In short, I love it and I really, really miss it when I'm on a public computer!

By: thinman

thinman — Mon, 03 Sep 2007 17:08:02 -0800

languagehat sneered: Why do you want to gather at the mods' feet and wait for their pearls of wisdom?

A less histrionic way of putting it might be, "Why do you want a no-effort way to quickly see the mods' comments in MetaTalk?"

The answer might be, "Because their comments are often the only real answers to questions being asked." When someone asks why a thread was deleted, or what some redacted comment was, or why a new site behavior was introduced, or if they can have a pony, it is usually true that only a mod has information necessary to provide an answer. As valuable as your shrill hyperbole is here, it isn't as valuable in a thread like this if mathowie shows up and says, "I don't like that idea, and I'm not going to add it to the site. Also, languagehat should stop waving his arms around like that. He looks like an ass."

If you need to find mathowie's comments, search on "mathowie."

And if you need to find moderators' comments, search on "mathowie." And then search on "jessamyn." And then search on "cortex." Elegant.

To have his comments glowing and throwing off sparks would be silly and insulting.

And to have moderators' comments on a slightly lighter background, similar to user comments in Recent Activity, would be unobtrusive and often helpful. Also, you're too easily insulted.

Talk about yer personality cult.

Talk about yer rhetorical bullshit.

By: cortex

cortex — Mon, 03 Sep 2007 17:36:23 -0800

Somewhere in the space between those two positions, I can see the sense of why this would be useful, but I don't think it's a great idea for default site behavior and would be a bit weird.

By: smackfu

smackfu — Mon, 03 Sep 2007 20:21:16 -0800

Weird for you maybe.

By: cortex

cortex — Mon, 03 Sep 2007 20:57:38 -0800

Well, yeah.

By: Dave Faris

Dave Faris — Mon, 03 Sep 2007 21:11:51 -0800

You don't think the mods get enough attention as it is?

By: carsonb

carsonb — Mon, 03 Sep 2007 21:19:32 -0800

Dave Faris: You don't think the mods get enough attention as it is?

They get just enough. Perfect and spot on, is the amount of attention the mods 'round here get day in and day out plus nighttime, all the time.

By: blasdelf

blasdelf — Mon, 03 Sep 2007 21:30:29 -0800

I don't think it's a good idea to highlight all admin comments.

Could you maybe add a checkbox to the admin posting interface so that you can pre-mark your administrating comments to be highlighted in a best-answer-style box?

By: blasdelf

blasdelf — Mon, 03 Sep 2007 21:32:20 -0800

Dave Faris: You don't think the mods get enough attention as it is?

They don't get nearly as much attention as you, Dave Faris, deserve. Who do they think they are?

By: mdevore

mdevore — Mon, 03 Sep 2007 22:10:54 -0800

Can we highlight the mods' responses?

Dude, this is 2007, the heyday of Greasemonkey and other browser scripting add-ons. You own your side of the browser interaction—within the wide limits of JavaScript and other available languages— and can change about anything the browser displays that you want in response to almost any kind of input you care to detect. There are at least three existent scripts to highlight an administrator's post on MetaFilter one way or another, and it would be very simple, should you know programming, to write your very own customized script that acts exactly as you wish should no scripts already do that.

All hail personal, browser, and user interface freedom...

By: tehloki

tehloki — Tue, 04 Sep 2007 06:51:05 -0800

Just click on each moderator's name to get to their userpage, and don't click on anybody else. There, now their names show up as the "clicked this link already" colour, and stand out. That's what I do.