Two requests: sorting threads and social linking!

September 25, 2007 10:50 AM

Two requests: sort threads by number-of-favorites, and a bit of social linking in profiles.

Ability to sort threads by number of favorites -- pretty simple. The Star Simpson thread is a good example of when, after coming in late in the game, I'd like to weed out 595 of the comments and read the ones that people like the most.

Social linking in the profile: I'd love to visit someone's profile and see what type of interaction I've had with that person. For instance, did JoeBlow answer one of my AskMe questions? Tell me which one -- show me the history I've had with this person.

That's all.

posted by c:\awesome to feature requests at 10:50 AM (13 comments total)

The first one I'd say is on the someday pile. I'd like to get a similar feature in ask mefi going first, where you offer the ability to show best answers first, then the whole thread following, but favorites first could also work.

The second idea is a good one. After seeing how well digg just facebookized their platform, I really need to make the whole user contacts thing useful and easier to use, also, showing any related links to another user even not on your contacts is also a good way to create connections. It sounds like a big job for pb, so I'll put it on the wishlist.
posted by mathowie at 11:00 AM on September 25, 2007

That was easy.
posted by c:\awesome at 11:24 AM on September 25, 2007

Comment score thresholds! The new big thing.

(It's hilarious that the standard "average comment" filter on YouTube is a score of -5. Comments start at 0, so that means five people actively disliked those "average" comments.)
posted by smackfu at 11:45 AM on September 25, 2007

where you offer the ability to show best answers first, then the whole thread following,

I'd suggest making it a link, where a user can jump to the best answer, because displaying things first, based on best answers or favorites throws the thread outta sequential order. Yeah, that may or may not matter on a per thread basis, but it seems like you'd want to keep the order of posts in the thread. Food for thoght and all that...
posted by Brandon Blatcher at 12:46 PM on September 25, 2007

At the very least you'll want to disable posting while in sorted mode to discourage people from posting without reading the thread in order for context. Otherwise we'll get people responding to the highest scored comments without reading any followups to them, which would dramatically increase the number of duplicate replies & kill the (already somewhat sketchy) sense of continuity & conversational flow we have now.
posted by scalefree at 1:56 PM on September 25, 2007 [1 favorite]

With the garbage that gets favorites? Not a good idea, at all.
posted by Chuckles at 3:03 PM on September 25, 2007

I can't wait until there's an open FOAF model that all sites can use. I'm sick of having to recreate my friends list on 80 different sites.
posted by empath at 3:32 PM on September 25, 2007 [1 favorite]

Hey, here's something simple: In Firefox, just type "favorite". Or, if you don't want to waste your time on every single favorite, type "favorites". Then use ctrl-g to sort through each instance of [n favorites +] [!]. This is what I usually do. No hack required!
posted by Eideteker at 4:02 PM on September 25, 2007

show best answers first, then the whole thread following,
Bad idea. Bad, bad idea. One of the strengths of MeFi is that it sticks to the chronological order without filtering - taking some comments, which have been decided as "best" by one person only and making them "more important", breaks one of the things that makes MeFi great. I know that the one person who marked them such is the one who asked the question, but one of the strengths of AskMe is that the question and its answers remains as a resource for anyone to use in the future. The "best" answer may not be the best answer to those who come in the future to read our wisdom.
posted by dg at 5:13 PM on September 25, 2007

scalefree: "At the very least you'll want to disable posting while in sorted mode to discourage people from posting without reading the thread in order for context. Otherwise we'll get people responding to the highest scored comments without reading any followups to them, which would dramatically increase the number of duplicate replies & kill the (already somewhat sketchy) sense of continuity & conversational flow we have now."

This is an exceedingly important point, hence my quoting it in full.
posted by Rock Steady at 5:42 PM on September 25, 2007

I agree with dg, one is a really bad idea. Do you ever look at your own received favourites? It's crazy what gets marked such.

Eideteker's approach works in every browser I've ever used (details differ of course) and it keeps comments in context.
posted by Mitheral at 5:44 PM on September 25, 2007

Bad idea.
posted by stavrosthewonderchicken at 6:20 PM on September 25, 2007

Open FOAF , I think we are closing in on it.
http://www.techcrunch.com/2007/09/21/google-to-out-open-facebook-on-november-5/
posted by BrodieShadeTree at 9:01 PM on September 25, 2007