More Inside? You bet.

September 6, 2007 3:11 PM

More inside everywhere!

Well, not technically everywhere, but the blue, Metatalk, and Music now have a [more inside] option when posting. (This has been available at AskMeFi for quite a while already.) No need to add to your own "more inside", "after the jump", or "below the fold"; [more inside] will be a appended to the post if an extended description is available. As always, bugs are probably lurking, and I know there are sections of the site that aren't expecting [more inside] yet, but we'll update/fix as we go.

posted by pb to Feature Requests at 3:11 PM (47 comments total)

Rock and frickin' roll, pb.
posted by cortex (staff) at 3:13 PM on September 6, 2007

Everywhere really does have more inside. Tessellating fractals of more inside within more inside until the recursion comes around unto itself.
posted by Burhanistan at 3:14 PM on September 6, 2007

Yay! This makes me happy.
posted by Ms. Saint at 3:21 PM on September 6, 2007

This is for cortex.
posted by Poolio at 3:22 PM on September 6, 2007

Babies EVERYwhere!
posted by Astro Zombie at 3:25 PM on September 6, 2007

The end of gigantic posts on the front page?

Yay.
posted by DMan at 3:36 PM on September 6, 2007

Can you add a feature to detect if the last bit of the non-extended description is "there's" or "there is" and reject the post?

This comment was
posted by grouse at 3:37 PM on September 6, 2007 [4 favorites]

Cool, thanks.
posted by athenian at 4:00 PM on September 6, 2007

Great, more people making "there is" [more inside] quips. Remember to flag those posts, everyone.
posted by puke & cry at 4:05 PM on September 6, 2007 [2 favorites]

Yeah, flag them as fantastic! I kid.
Everyone should read and favorite anything
posted by Durin's Bane at 4:13 PM on September 6, 2007

**burp**

Sorry, had a little too much more inside.

Thanks pb!
posted by Brandon Blatcher at 4:24 PM on September 6, 2007

puke & cry: I gotta get my USB Robotic Boxing Glove to market. It's really the solution to this kind of problem.
posted by aubilenon at 4:25 PM on September 6, 2007

Thats a good idea. Nice work team!
posted by nola at 4:26 PM on September 6, 2007

but the blue, Metatalk, and Music now have a [more inside] option when posting

The blue? This makes me sad.
posted by cillit bang at 4:27 PM on September 6, 2007

I thought the reason for not doing this on the blue was that we didn't want to do anything that might encourage more GYOBFW essay-length posts. Has that thinking changed?
posted by Rhomboid at 4:43 PM on September 6, 2007

If Matt had've engaged the services of pb like 5 years ago, we'd all be experiencing it via teledildonics and hardwired brainplugs! On the other hand, that might lead to possibly unforseen and unpleasant consequences of J-Run errors.

Anyway: go pb!
posted by stavrosthewonderchicken at 4:51 PM on September 6, 2007 [1 favorite]

Rhombold, we never got any consensus. We'll try it and see on MeFi. I don't think it will change behavior very much.
posted by mathowie (staff) at 4:56 PM on September 6, 2007

Speaking of which, does anybody have one of those old "[more inside]" Metafilter t-shirts (with the text across the belly) that Matt used to sell on CafePress a few years back? He told me he doesn't have any anymore, and since I'm gestating a sprout at the moment, I'd love to get my hands on one...

Anyone?
posted by Asparagirl at 4:58 PM on September 6, 2007 [1 favorite]

pb: The bringer of happiness.
posted by quin at 5:02 PM on September 6, 2007

I thought the reason for not doing this on the blue was that we didn't want to do anything that might encourage more GYOBFW essay-length posts. Has that thinking changed?

What Matt said: we all have different opinions on whether or not it will be a problem, but we don't really have any way of knowing without trying. If there's a great big surge of rants with footnotes undammed by this, well, shit, we'll have to reconsider. But I'm guessing Matt is right: longposters will keep longposting, but there probably won't be a bunch of new recruits.

In the mean time, folks who put way too much on the front page anyway can be cleaned up painlessly now, which is a big bonus.
posted by cortex (staff) at 5:05 PM on September 6, 2007

I'd kind of like to see more long posts in the blue. I find it a little frustrating to see a bunch of posts that give just a brief hint of what the actual topic is along with a bunch of unexplained links. I'm lazy like that.
posted by Ms. Saint at 5:38 PM on September 6, 2007

And I'm mad [the more, she is inside] wasn't chosen.

But seriously, cool feature.
posted by ALongDecember at 5:48 PM on September 6, 2007

I'd kind of like to see more long posts in the blue.

Me, I tend to prefer single-link 'here's this really cool thing I found'. But it's potato/potahto, and it's all good. There's room for all kinds.
posted by stavrosthewonderchicken at 5:50 PM on September 6, 2007

You know who else had more inside?
posted by GuyZero at 5:58 PM on September 6, 2007 [1 favorite]

You know who else had more inside?

Yo momma?

Seriously though... yay. More inside everywhere!
posted by flibbertigibbet at 6:08 PM on September 6, 2007

Poorly described links suck, yes. I want a few sentences and not a couple words. What I don't want is the "here is this very important issue that I'm convinced you really need to know about [and that I just happen to be knowledgable about] and I'm going to regale you with many blockquotes and six paragraphs of My Very Important Topic For You To Read" posters.
posted by Rhomboid at 6:15 PM on September 6, 2007

Agreed (with a y2karl waiver clause).
posted by stavrosthewonderchicken at 6:16 PM on September 6, 2007

TIA, you socialist assholes!!!
posted by inigo2 at 6:47 PM on September 6, 2007

Nice work. (I do fear the inelegant use of [more inside] to end sentences, though.)
posted by OmieWise at 7:21 PM on September 6, 2007

I have just made the first [more inside] post for a music list I wouldn't have posted otherwise, because of its structure. It's kind of a stress test for the new feature and its acceptance. I hope it wendells (or Poolios).
posted by wendell at 7:33 PM on September 6, 2007

Why don't you just have one printed up yourself, Asparagirl?
posted by orange swan at 8:29 PM on September 6, 2007

The end of gigantic posts on the front page?

I hope so, too, though there seem to be those who take a certain belligerent pride in taking up lotsa blue space, and who can probably be expected to continue doing so. Won't name names, though, I prefer to give everyone the benefit of the doubt.

Yay for [more inside]!
posted by flapjax at midnite at 9:27 PM on September 6, 2007

I particularly like how the little [more inside] only gets appended if there really is some more inside. Ask didnt do this before and it was very occasionally jarring. Not enough to complain about, but enough to notice.
posted by shelleycat at 10:37 PM on September 6, 2007

Yay! I can post without fear of repercussions again!

not that this improves the quality of my posts, but still...NO REPERCUSSIONS!
posted by davejay at 12:31 AM on September 7, 2007

This is very cool. It's already being used to great effect.
posted by maxwelton at 1:38 AM on September 7, 2007

I thought the reason for not doing this on the blue was that we didn't want to do anything that might encourage more GYOBFW essay-length posts. Has that thinking changed?

The way I would like to see this work is that all posts are expected to have a presentation of one or two good links in the front page part - which would have a sensible character limit, and probably a limit on the number of links as well. This could then optionally be followed by a more essay-length thing in the more inside.

This means that the people who want links to good stuff and the people who want the ability to read and write essays can both be happy. It does make it a bit harder for someone who has a good essay but no really strong material to link to, but I think that's probably fine with most Mefites.
posted by tomcooke at 3:09 AM on September 7, 2007

Oh, and thanks, I'm happy to see this feature. I also suggest that if a character limit is going to be added for the front page part then line breaks in that text should be disallowed at the same time.
posted by tomcooke at 3:11 AM on September 7, 2007

Does anyone else think the [more inside] is overused? I always feel great relief and happiness when I see ask.meta questions that don't have it. I seems like there are a lot of people who separate short questions into two halves without any pressing need. Like:

Metafilter, my kitty is coughing up hairballs. What can I do about it?
[more inside]
My kitty is nice.
posted by Greg Nog at 6:58 AM on September 7, 2007

I agree. What I hate is when people get oversensitive about describing their problem too verbosely, so they make the front page part "Cat question." and the more inside contains a few sentences. It would be much better if they could just describe the entire question succinctly in one or two sentences without a [more inside] without hyper-abbreviating it to three words.
posted by Rhomboid at 7:09 AM on September 7, 2007

Hey, baby -- you look like you could use a little [more inside]
posted by LordSludge at 9:51 AM on September 7, 2007

All together now: thank yew, pb!

(and, from l'il ol' me:)

I ♥ pb!
posted by Lynsey at 10:42 AM on September 7, 2007

I thanked a sheep for pb.
posted by phoque at 11:31 AM on September 7, 2007

Yes!

Thank you!
posted by Many bubbles at 1:45 PM on September 7, 2007

I thought the reason for not doing this on the blue was that we didn't want to do anything that might encourage more GYOBFW essay-length posts.

I always thought this was an asinine idea, and I'm quite confident I'll be proven right.

Well done, pb!
posted by languagehat at 8:26 AM on September 8, 2007

argh, I missed hearing about this feature and when I arrived at the Phil Spector post from RSS I flagged it because I thought it had dumped all that stuff on the front page as well. So sorry!
posted by jepler at 5:35 PM on September 8, 2007

You think I'd do that to you, jepler? And here I thought you trusted me, man!
posted by flapjax at midnite at 9:43 PM on September 8, 2007

I know there are sections of the site that aren't expecting [more inside] yet, but we'll update/fix as we go.

The archive pages (e.g.) seem to need updating to display the [more inside] tag.
posted by Rhomboid at 7:16 PM on September 19, 2007