Comments on: MeFi Mail is here

MeFi Mail is here

mathowie — Fri, 19 Oct 2007 14:26:11 -0800

MeFi Mail is being rolled out, so pardon the dust for the next hour or so and once it's live, feel free to discuss it here.

By: cavalier

cavalier — Fri, 19 Oct 2007 14:33:30 -0800

FIRST!!%!@%^!^

Sorry.. really... not really...

By: dash_slot-

dash_slot- — Fri, 19 Oct 2007 14:34:31 -0800

OK, so... how best to actually use it? If I click your email as in your profile, it starts Outlook.

Er, simpletons guide please?!!?

By: CunningLinguist

CunningLinguist — Fri, 19 Oct 2007 14:36:12 -0800

Your inbox is empty!

Grump. Typical.

By: drezdn

drezdn — Fri, 19 Oct 2007 14:36:47 -0800

I haven't tried it, but I just noticed it when I came to the home page. Neat!

By: bonaldi

bonaldi — Fri, 19 Oct 2007 14:36:58 -0800

The status bar makes my topbar formatting go nuts unless my window is at least $large wide. (Mozilla OS 9)

By: eyeballkid

eyeballkid — Fri, 19 Oct 2007 14:39:48 -0800

Hey! I got an email from Matt Haughey! I'm the man!

By: CunningLinguist

CunningLinguist — Fri, 19 Oct 2007 14:40:00 -0800

Yay! Thanks Matt.

By: cortex

cortex — Fri, 19 Oct 2007 14:41:07 -0800

The clickable email field in the profile is just the, you know, email field. Looks like the "send this user mefimail" link isn't so much there right yet.

By: xmutex

xmutex — Fri, 19 Oct 2007 14:41:32 -0800

Every click opens mefi mail in a new tab. FireFox 2.0.0.8.

By: dios

dios — Fri, 19 Oct 2007 14:41:39 -0800

Hmm, I replied to Matt's email with an email that says "Thanks" because I wanted to see how the reply thing worked. It occurs to me now that Matt might be receiving a ton of those, so I hope we won't crash his email box.

By: CunningLinguist

CunningLinguist — Fri, 19 Oct 2007 14:42:36 -0800

Heh. I "blocked this sender."

By: klangklangston

klangklangston — Fri, 19 Oct 2007 14:43:22 -0800

Wow, now MeFi can finally be Yahoo circa '99!

By: IndigoRain

IndigoRain — Fri, 19 Oct 2007 14:43:24 -0800

Not bad, not bad at all! :) Thanks Matt, for all your hard work!

By: klangklangston

klangklangston — Fri, 19 Oct 2007 14:43:53 -0800

How come there's no "reply to all"?

By: eyeballkid

eyeballkid — Fri, 19 Oct 2007 14:44:19 -0800

OK, so... how best to actually use it? If I click your email as in your profile, it starts Outlook.

Er, simpletons guide please?!!?

Can I take a stab at that without knowing the full implementation?

The email system is internal to Metafilter, like private messaging on most other web boards. Chances are Matt and pb are working on a link in your profile that will allow you to forward a message to another user as long as you are logged in. The link just isn't live yet.

By: eyeballkid

eyeballkid — Fri, 19 Oct 2007 14:44:29 -0800

Or, what cortex said.

By: monju_bosatsu

monju_bosatsu — Fri, 19 Oct 2007 14:44:34 -0800

/me sets up spam relay.

By: loquacious

loquacious — Fri, 19 Oct 2007 14:45:00 -0800

NO I D0N'T W4NT ANY C|AL|S OR V|AGR4

By: Sugar Induced Coma

Sugar Induced Coma — Fri, 19 Oct 2007 14:45:24 -0800

Now, I too can experience the joys of the little lit up envelope.

By: drezdn

drezdn — Fri, 19 Oct 2007 14:45:26 -0800

Allow me to be the first with a memail pony request: the ability to send someone a memail by just typing in their user id.

By: felix betachat

felix betachat — Fri, 19 Oct 2007 14:45:44 -0800

Ok, so...protocol time. In-thread quoting of email exchanges between users without consent is universally considered gauche. Does the same apply for MeFi mail? Or is it somewhere in between public and private?

By: dios

dios — Fri, 19 Oct 2007 14:46:43 -0800

So what's the over/under on how long until someone has gamed this and done something silly? 20 minutes?

By: dash_slot-

dash_slot- — Fri, 19 Oct 2007 14:48:05 -0800

Er, yeah, got it.
skulks away

By: CunningLinguist

CunningLinguist — Fri, 19 Oct 2007 14:49:08 -0800

In-thread quoting of email exchanges between users without consent is universally considered gauche. Does the same apply for MeFi mail?

I would think so.

By: Ethereal Bligh

Ethereal Bligh — Fri, 19 Oct 2007 14:49:56 -0800

“Does the same apply for MeFi mail?”

Of course it does. Why would you think that mefmail would be any less private than regular email?

Oh, Matt and pb: the alignment of the checkboxes for email options on the profile edit page need to be tweaked. They're misaligned for me (I'm using Georgia 14 and Eras 10, if that's relevant).

By: jessamyn

jessamyn — Fri, 19 Oct 2007 14:50:21 -0800

here are some things that I think we know

- you can block mefimail for good. after today that is.
- you can block certain users from mefimailing you.
- mefimail is in addition to having email in your profile. you can do either/or
- you can forward mefimail to your email inbox but it still shows up in your mefimail box
- we will not read your mail, period
- there's a tiny chance that we might use this to send admin messages but even though we think we might none of us could see a reason why we might do this
- right now the 1.0 version has you having to click a link to mefimail someone, the "type a username" option was suggested but has some downsides and I don't know if it will be in a 2.0 rollout or not

other questions? bonaldi, how wide does your screen have to be to have it look weird, any idea?

By: klangklangston

klangklangston — Fri, 19 Oct 2007 14:51:16 -0800

"Of course it does. Why would you think that mefmail would be any less private than regular email?"

Because Cortex reads every message sent?

By: It's Raining Florence Henderson

It's Raining Florence Henderson — Fri, 19 Oct 2007 14:51:24 -0800

This is why we can't have nice... oops! Jumped the gun a little.

Thanks Matt & pb!

By: drezdn

drezdn — Fri, 19 Oct 2007 14:51:29 -0800

Can we call it memail?

By: Chuckles

Chuckles — Fri, 19 Oct 2007 14:51:36 -0800

That flashing, green, "you're changes have been saved" box is.. Well.. A little surprising.. Couldn't you have just used the blink tag?!?

By: Ethereal Bligh

Ethereal Bligh — Fri, 19 Oct 2007 14:52:14 -0800

Oh, and thanks so much Matt for adding the option to have it forwarded to one's regular email address.

By: drezdn

drezdn — Fri, 19 Oct 2007 14:52:16 -0800

Because Cortex reads every message sent?

It's ok though, because he only deletes the ones he disagrees with.

By: eyeballkid

eyeballkid — Fri, 19 Oct 2007 14:52:19 -0800

Also, will you be offering 2GB of email space like Google? That way I can keep an email from Ethereal Bligh if need be?

I kid. I kid.

By: dios

dios — Fri, 19 Oct 2007 14:52:38 -0800

Maybe I am little slow, but how does one send porn through this thing?

By: four panels

four panels — Fri, 19 Oct 2007 14:52:47 -0800

PWNS FACE

By: ardgedee

ardgedee — Fri, 19 Oct 2007 14:53:52 -0800

> In-thread quoting of email exchanges between users without consent is universally considered gauche. Does the same apply for MeFi mail?

Heck, naw. The barriers between private and public are TOTALLY DIFFERENT on Metafilter compared to the rest of the world.

Seriously, just because private messages are in-venue, they're still private. Play nice.

By: mathowie

mathowie — Fri, 19 Oct 2007 14:54:11 -0800

Don't forget plain text theme users now get a tiny colored bar at the top of the screen as well, so now you can tell where you are at in the site (blue! green! gray! grayer! sorta bluish-green!)

By: Ethereal Bligh

Ethereal Bligh — Fri, 19 Oct 2007 14:55:09 -0800

“Also, will you be offering 2GB of email space like Google? That way I can keep an email from Ethereal Bligh if need be?”

Google is up to 3.6GB now. Anyway, my messages only average about 20-30 megabytes with no attachments, so you should be covered if I ever decide to mefmail you.

By: klangklangston

klangklangston — Fri, 19 Oct 2007 14:55:17 -0800

"Heck, naw. The barriers between private and public are TOTALLY DIFFERENT on Metafilter compared to the rest of the world."

I PUT MY DICK ON YOUR SCREEN!

By: dash_slot-

dash_slot- — Fri, 19 Oct 2007 14:57:09 -0800

- we will not read your mail, period

Oh, that's great, but if it's on Mefi servers, and it's offensive...

By: bonaldi

bonaldi — Fri, 19 Oct 2007 14:57:56 -0800

Quibble aside, this is a nice design, Matt! Apart from the unprofessional background. But I always prefer "clean" clients, and this is one.

By: Mister Cheese

Mister Cheese — Fri, 19 Oct 2007 14:57:59 -0800

Ah cool, it looks like I can get to my profile even from within threads because of this addition. I know it has nothing to do with the e-mailing aspect. I assure you that I will cherish the automated e-mail from mathowie and nevar delete it evar.

Doesn't the signout link make the front page logout link redundant now? Or am I missing some cool mail functionality that distinguishes the two?

By: Astro Zombie

Astro Zombie — Fri, 19 Oct 2007 15:00:09 -0800

I prefer mefmail to memail. Memail sounds like a costume a furry would wear.

By: mathowie

mathowie — Fri, 19 Oct 2007 15:00:15 -0800

(adding proper targets so new windows don't open)

By: Chuckles

Chuckles — Fri, 19 Oct 2007 15:00:26 -0800

Oh, and thanks so much Matt for adding the option to have it forwarded to one's regular email address.

This is a key option. Will it forward sent messages too? That would really complete the picture.

By: eyeballkid

eyeballkid — Fri, 19 Oct 2007 15:01:47 -0800

What about milfmail?

By: dios

dios — Fri, 19 Oct 2007 15:01:52 -0800

Doesn't the signout link make the front page logout link redundant now? Or am I missing some cool mail functionality that distinguishes the two?
posted by Mister Cheese at 4:57 PM on October 19

I'm interested in the answer to the latter question. If it is in fact redundant, I'd prefer that the signout next to the mail thing be deleted in favor of the front page logout because I am apt to miss the little mail image and click logout on accident.

By: PeterMcDermott

PeterMcDermott — Fri, 19 Oct 2007 15:02:37 -0800

there's a tiny chance that we might use this to send admin messages but even though we think we might none of us could see a reason why we might do this

Ah. Given that I couldn't find any way to send email to anybody else, I was convinced that the only possible purpose for this would be so that mods could tell me that they've deleted my gratuitously offensive posts and be almost sure that I've read my telling off.

By: jessamyn

jessamyn — Fri, 19 Oct 2007 15:02:48 -0800

CORTEX SPAMMED ME!!

By: zsazsa

zsazsa — Fri, 19 Oct 2007 15:03:25 -0800

Mister Cheese: "My Profile" gets you to your profile and is ye olde. Same for the "Posting as: your_name_here" link before the comment box.

By: The Straightener

The Straightener — Fri, 19 Oct 2007 15:03:29 -0800

This and two new Facebook friends in one day?

*squeals*

By: jessamyn

jessamyn — Fri, 19 Oct 2007 15:03:37 -0800

meaning: I'd like a select all box at some point to delete messages en masse.

By: boo_radley

boo_radley — Fri, 19 Oct 2007 15:04:04 -0800

hovering over the envelope/ mail message generates a js error in firefox 2.0.0.8:



lnk.href has no properties:

h = lnk.href.length; t = nicetitle.length;

By: loiseau

loiseau — Fri, 19 Oct 2007 15:04:29 -0800

i think it looks very handsome! i like the way the notification bar has been added to the white board theme. no complaints here!

By: Abiezer

Abiezer — Fri, 19 Oct 2007 15:06:02 -0800

- we will not read your mail, period
Hey, that makes four of us!
Only cos I know I won't be sent any. Sniff

By: ThePinkSuperhero

ThePinkSuperhero — Fri, 19 Oct 2007 15:06:04 -0800

I move that we change the Mefi Popularity Contest from being judged by favorites to being judged by how much MeFi mail you get.

By: klangklangston

klangklangston — Fri, 19 Oct 2007 15:06:17 -0800

Now I just need a greasemonkey script that allows me to send a message of "HIGH FIVE" and the comment url, so I can stop wasting my supply of favorites.

By: kkokkodalk

kkokkodalk — Fri, 19 Oct 2007 15:06:32 -0800

I'm gonna be honest. I'm loving this like it was McDonald's (barah bah bah bah~) simply because seeing "new mail/message" notification icons always makes me happy.

By: Happy Dave

Happy Dave — Fri, 19 Oct 2007 15:06:37 -0800

This is pretty sweet - thanks Matt.

By: klangklangston

klangklangston — Fri, 19 Oct 2007 15:06:39 -0800

SEE?! IS GOOD IDEA!

By: micayetoca

micayetoca — Fri, 19 Oct 2007 15:06:54 -0800

Heh. I "blocked this sender."
posted by CunningLinguist

Too bad, you won't be reading your pre-ban notification, then.

By: Cool Papa Bell

Cool Papa Bell — Fri, 19 Oct 2007 15:07:34 -0800

It's ok though, because he only deletes the ones he disagrees with.

And that's different because . . . ?

By: cortex

cortex — Fri, 19 Oct 2007 15:09:33 -0800

CORTEX SPAMMED ME!!

Usability testing. Sweartagod.

By: PeterMcDermott

PeterMcDermott — Fri, 19 Oct 2007 15:09:54 -0800

Only cos I know I won't be sent any. Sniff

What, you haven't had that MefiMail I sent you yet, Abiezer?

By: PeterMcDermott

PeterMcDermott — Fri, 19 Oct 2007 15:10:16 -0800

Only cos I know I won't be sent any. Sniff

What, you haven't had that MefiMail I sent you yet, Abiezer? Damn slow this service if you ask me.

By: ericb

ericb — Fri, 19 Oct 2007 15:12:06 -0800

[THIS IS GOOD]

Thanks.

By: Abiezer

Abiezer — Fri, 19 Oct 2007 15:12:17 -0800

Cheers, our Pete! Etiquette prevents me from telling the rest of you slobs why.

By: Abiezer

Abiezer — Fri, 19 Oct 2007 15:13:10 -0800

Though that kind of utter filth is better in a higher resolution imo.

By: phaedon

phaedon — Fri, 19 Oct 2007 15:14:30 -0800

Wow. Is this the worst idea ever or what? I can't wait to use it.

By: mathowie

mathowie — Fri, 19 Oct 2007 15:15:04 -0800

I removed the redundant info on the front pages of the subsites.

By: micayetoca

micayetoca — Fri, 19 Oct 2007 15:16:01 -0800

pb/matt: the dissappearing "your mail's been sent" box is fucking cool.

By: scrump

scrump — Fri, 19 Oct 2007 15:17:12 -0800

I prefer mefmail to memail. Memail sounds like a costume a furry would wear.

Well, "mefmail" looked like "yiffmail" to me the first time I read it, so you're WRONG WRONG WRONG.

By: sugarfish

sugarfish — Fri, 19 Oct 2007 15:18:13 -0800

Oh, fabulous, another empty email box. Won't someone think of the lonely?

Just kidding, this is awesome. Wait, does this thing have the img tag?

By: mathowie

mathowie — Fri, 19 Oct 2007 15:18:39 -0800

I prefer mefmail to memail.

It's called MeFi Mail. Just one more character and no one will be confused.

By: gummi

gummi — Fri, 19 Oct 2007 15:19:03 -0800

pb/matt: the dissappearing "your mail's been sent" box is fucking cool.

It gave me seizures! I kid!

This is great, thanks to everyone who helped make this happen.

By: jessamyn

jessamyn — Fri, 19 Oct 2007 15:20:03 -0800

Why does it say "welcome back" to me? I never went anywhere. Can't it greet me in some language from another country?

Seriously, this just works and I'm pleased to see that it seems to mostly work for other people too.

By: Abiezer

Abiezer — Fri, 19 Oct 2007 15:20:17 -0800

I've sent Anonymous a request for dinner and drinks. Should be one wild night if I can stop them going on about their problems!

By: quin

quin — Fri, 19 Oct 2007 15:23:12 -0800

So what are we calling this? MetaMail?

Also, small pony request: can we have it play a .wav that says "You've got snark" whenever we log in see new messages?

By: ThePinkSuperhero

ThePinkSuperhero — Fri, 19 Oct 2007 15:23:20 -0800

::runs to message Anonymous::

By: spinturtle

spinturtle — Fri, 19 Oct 2007 15:23:24 -0800

This is super sweet. Now if only I didn't feel like such a Mefi loner (constant reader, infrequent poster, so I feel like I know y'all, but you don't know me, you know?), and had someone to memail with.

oh, and: Hey! I got an email from Matt Haughey! I'm the woman!

By: stopgap

stopgap — Fri, 19 Oct 2007 15:23:40 -0800

In the "Contact Preferences" of my profile editing page, the checkboxes don't line up with their labels. The second one, "Forward MeFi Mail to your address?" takes up two lines which throws off the layout.

By: quin

quin — Fri, 19 Oct 2007 15:24:25 -0800

Oh, and this is actually really cool. Thanks guys.

By: liquorice

liquorice — Fri, 19 Oct 2007 15:24:41 -0800

This is cool. I get way too excited when I get mail. But, hey, it brightens my day a little.

By: rtha

rtha — Fri, 19 Oct 2007 15:25:14 -0800

[THIS IS WICKED GOOD]

Thank you!

By: tepidmonkey

tepidmonkey — Fri, 19 Oct 2007 15:25:30 -0800

I like this.

By: CunningLinguist

CunningLinguist — Fri, 19 Oct 2007 15:25:51 -0800

I just tested out the fwding thing. Here's a potential problem. What arrives in your mailbox is from Matt - if you unthinkingly hit reply, it goes to him, not the person who emailed you.

By: eyeballkid

eyeballkid — Fri, 19 Oct 2007 15:26:30 -0800

PONY REQUEST(For 2.0): I'm noticing that when replying to someone, the archived reply doesn't contain the text of the original email. So if you want to follow a conversation, you'd need to switch back and forth between the "Your Inbox" and "Your Sent Mail" to reconstruct a conversation. (Yes, Gmail has spoiled me with threaded email.)

Also, this is fucking rad.

By: maudlin

maudlin — Fri, 19 Oct 2007 15:27:58 -0800

I love this so much. My heart is full, even though my Inbox is empty.

By: blenderfish

blenderfish — Fri, 19 Oct 2007 15:28:12 -0800

Cool. Hopefully this will reduce noise on the grey.

By: jessamyn

jessamyn — Fri, 19 Oct 2007 15:29:04 -0800

Abiezer: I hear she has herpes. And warts.

If we've made eyeballkid happy, our job here is done.

By: dios

dios — Fri, 19 Oct 2007 15:31:03 -0800

hey monju_bosatsu: check your mail.

By: mathowie

mathowie — Fri, 19 Oct 2007 15:31:25 -0800

I just tested out the fwding thing. Here's a potential problem. What arrives in your mailbox is from Matt - if you unthinkingly hit reply, it goes to him, not the person who emailed you.

Yeah, we should send it from a system /dev/null/ account instead.

By: Abiezer

Abiezer — Fri, 19 Oct 2007 15:32:22 -0800

Can I begin the moans by saying that the comedy spam I just sent to bokane in Chinese got mangled. Any love for Unicode possible? Not a biggie of course.

By: George_Spiggott

George_Spiggott — Fri, 19 Oct 2007 15:33:32 -0800

Until a few minutes ago I'd had no idea that the son of the late Burundi finance minister was a mefite.

By: pb

pb — Fri, 19 Oct 2007 15:34:18 -0800

Abiezer, try your message again. Unicode should be working. Let me know if not.

By: BeerFilter

BeerFilter — Fri, 19 Oct 2007 15:34:44 -0800

I wonder what wendell thinks of all this.

By: Astro Zombie

Astro Zombie — Fri, 19 Oct 2007 15:35:00 -0800

Shit. Now I have mefmouth. Wow, that kicks in really fast.

By: The Straightener

The Straightener — Fri, 19 Oct 2007 15:36:12 -0800

MeFail.

By: The Deej

The Deej — Fri, 19 Oct 2007 15:36:27 -0800

This will not end well.

By: BitterOldPunk

BitterOldPunk — Fri, 19 Oct 2007 15:36:38 -0800

Does this mean this is a social networking site now?

Goddammit.

*resigns*

Nah, this is cool. I can take my gmail address out of my profile and have all MeMail forwarded to it....excellent!

By: liquorice

liquorice — Fri, 19 Oct 2007 15:37:40 -0800

Someone memail me something!

By: amyms

amyms — Fri, 19 Oct 2007 15:38:57 -0800

Cool!

By: Abiezer

Abiezer — Fri, 19 Oct 2007 15:39:00 -0800

pb - still no dice, in either subject field or body text. I'm inputting using SCIM under Linux if that makes any difference.

By: Abiezer

Abiezer — Fri, 19 Oct 2007 15:39:40 -0800

Or I could message you! Silly me.

By: The Deej

The Deej — Fri, 19 Oct 2007 15:40:56 -0800

Can we call it memail?

How 'bout Mefail?

By: The Deej

The Deej — Fri, 19 Oct 2007 15:41:59 -0800

So when threads get derailed, will we see a message from Jessamyn saying "Take it to MefiMail!!!!"?

By: liquorice

liquorice — Fri, 19 Oct 2007 15:43:51 -0800

Thankyou to the 12 witty people who mailed me the word "something".

By: maudlin

maudlin — Fri, 19 Oct 2007 15:44:20 -0800

What, no points for being bilingual?

By: BitterOldPunk

BitterOldPunk — Fri, 19 Oct 2007 15:45:20 -0800

Just tried it out. Groovy blinky disappearing box messed with my HEAD, MAN.

By: ColdChef

ColdChef — Fri, 19 Oct 2007 15:45:43 -0800

I am tired of reaching out and touching you people.

By: ThePinkSuperhero

ThePinkSuperhero — Fri, 19 Oct 2007 15:46:06 -0800

I would like to be able to go from message to message without having to go back to the inbox first.

By: DMan

DMan — Fri, 19 Oct 2007 15:48:55 -0800

Someone memail me something besides something :P

By: goodnewsfortheinsane

goodnewsfortheinsane — Fri, 19 Oct 2007 15:49:18 -0800

It now tells me "welcome back"!

*sniff*

I suddenly have a tremendous urge to be where people see that our troubles are all the same, and where everybody knows my name.

By: jessamyn

jessamyn — Fri, 19 Oct 2007 15:50:40 -0800

When you're reading a message and then reply to it, having it drop you into your sent mail seems slightly counterintuitive, though I'm sure I'd adjust. Is this how other PM systems do it?

By: rmless

rmless — Fri, 19 Oct 2007 15:51:03 -0800

That little envelope is really f'in cute!

By: dirtynumbangelboy

dirtynumbangelboy — Fri, 19 Oct 2007 15:51:25 -0800

This is really awesome.

By: jayder

jayder — Fri, 19 Oct 2007 15:51:47 -0800

This is really cool.

By: quin

quin — Fri, 19 Oct 2007 15:52:06 -0800

*sobs*

Mommy the bad man touched me.

He just reached right out and touched me.

I feel all dirty now.

By: b33j

b33j — Fri, 19 Oct 2007 15:58:35 -0800

Great, another way I can feel isolated and ignored from and by all the cool mefites. I'm keeping my mathowie email, though, so my box will NEVER be empty.

By: Dillonlikescookies

Dillonlikescookies — Fri, 19 Oct 2007 15:58:50 -0800

wow.. cool. thanks matt :)

By: goodnewsfortheinsane

goodnewsfortheinsane — Fri, 19 Oct 2007 15:59:55 -0800

Did someone hear something just now?

By: rmless

rmless — Fri, 19 Oct 2007 16:00:48 -0800

Now that we have messaging, can we get massaging?

By: ColdChef

ColdChef — Fri, 19 Oct 2007 16:01:10 -0800

Those wishing to subscribe to my hourly newsletter, please MeFi Mail me $5. Topics to be covered: body hair, cooking techniques, gore, Gore, and Goretex. Subscribers will also get to compete in my weekly "Guess how they died?!" competition.

By: carsonb

carsonb — Fri, 19 Oct 2007 16:01:20 -0800

JRUN =(

By: fire&wings

fire&wings — Fri, 19 Oct 2007 16:02:34 -0800

This is a momentus step forward.

Matt really is waking up (albeit incredibly slowly) to the fact that vBulletin-style functionality is the future!

Next - emoticons. :)

By: 31d1

31d1 — Fri, 19 Oct 2007 16:06:28 -0800

dananeer writes:

hi i need help guys
i sent a mail to some open and need to recall it i mean get it back from his inbox before he open it
can you help
bbooo82@gmail.com
i’m using gmail

October 2nd, 2006 at 9:32 pm

By: typewriter

typewriter — Fri, 19 Oct 2007 16:07:49 -0800

I like. Thanks!

By: aubilenon

aubilenon — Fri, 19 Oct 2007 16:09:04 -0800

if I block someone accidentally can I unblock them (on purpose)?

I'm scared to try to find out.

By: ColdChef

ColdChef — Fri, 19 Oct 2007 16:09:14 -0800

*furiously hits "refresh"

WHERE MY NEW MESSAGES?

By: gwint

gwint — Fri, 19 Oct 2007 16:12:16 -0800

OMFG, more evidence of Zawinski's Law!

Also: Wow! Nicely done guys.

By: melissa may

melissa may — Fri, 19 Oct 2007 16:12:41 -0800

ColdChef: check your damn milfmail.

By: sveskemus

sveskemus — Fri, 19 Oct 2007 16:14:54 -0800

Very cool. I'll probably never get any mefi mail but cool nonetheless.

By: melissa may

melissa may — Fri, 19 Oct 2007 16:14:54 -0800

Also, this is making my mash note writing so much more convenient -- thanks very much, matt!

By: quonsar

quonsar — Fri, 19 Oct 2007 16:16:04 -0800

can you make it say "you've got mail!"?

By: nanojath

nanojath — Fri, 19 Oct 2007 16:16:31 -0800

I wonder what wendell thinks of all this.

I imagine we will all receive a rambling, somewhat confusing mass-message on the topic sometime soon.

So, I guess I missed something, because the last time I dropped into a discussion about private messaging within MetaTalk I seem to distinctly recall mathowie writing at length about the several reasons why it would be a bad idea (or at least a pain in the ass).

By: quonsar

quonsar — Fri, 19 Oct 2007 16:19:05 -0800

From : It's Raining Florence Henderson
Subject : You've got mail!
Message : ...in your pants!

By: ColdChef

ColdChef — Fri, 19 Oct 2007 16:21:09 -0800

Wow. I've now got a stalker on MetaFilter, too. I'm a popular guy. Go away, crazy man/or/woman!

By: donovan

donovan — Fri, 19 Oct 2007 16:23:11 -0800

Cool. Thanks!

By: quin

quin — Fri, 19 Oct 2007 16:25:36 -0800

An observation; on the sent mail page, the space between Recipient and Subject might need to be made a little wider, it's doing strange things with the recipient's somewhat long user name.

By: sveskemus

sveskemus — Fri, 19 Oct 2007 16:26:42 -0800

Yay! I've got mail! And it's kind of sleazy, too! Thank you mefi mail!

By: Abiezer

Abiezer — Fri, 19 Oct 2007 16:29:50 -0800

St pb the Awfully Clever has now resolved the Unicode problem in record time. CJK language speakers beware! I have multiple vectors for boring you silly now.

By: Effigy2000

Effigy2000 — Fri, 19 Oct 2007 16:29:57 -0800

Awesome! Thanks Matt and probably pb too!

By: Salmonberry

Salmonberry — Fri, 19 Oct 2007 16:30:06 -0800

Could we add filters for this? I'd like all my incoming mails to be converted into LOLCAT for reasons I would prefer to keep private.

Thanks, I think this is great!

By: routergirl

routergirl — Fri, 19 Oct 2007 16:30:22 -0800

Sweet!!

By: melissa may

melissa may — Fri, 19 Oct 2007 16:30:53 -0800

Damn, ColdChef is a pervert.

I already love you, memail!

By: jessamyn

jessamyn — Fri, 19 Oct 2007 16:33:20 -0800

It took two hours for me to get porn in it.

By: 517

517 — Fri, 19 Oct 2007 16:33:35 -0800

Does this mean that when I write stupid comments in askme that I will now also get a stern warning message too?

By: goodnewsfortheinsane

goodnewsfortheinsane — Fri, 19 Oct 2007 16:36:43 -0800

Apparently someone's got a crush on me. Not that I got a MefiMail to that extent or anything - I read it in a YouTube comment just now.

By: milarepa

milarepa — Fri, 19 Oct 2007 16:36:49 -0800

Man, I've been wishing for this function for like a year. I was going to post on Metatalk, but didn't want to be douchey so I didn't.

By: cobra_high_tigers

cobra_high_tigers — Fri, 19 Oct 2007 16:43:34 -0800

Perfect. Now I won't have to juggle my gmail from-addresses to maintain some anonymity!

By: eyeballkid

eyeballkid — Fri, 19 Oct 2007 16:43:37 -0800

So now we have another MeFi undercurrent, much like IRC, offsite cult threads and MetaChat. The site deepens and the plot thickens.

By: jazon

jazon — Fri, 19 Oct 2007 16:45:24 -0800

So I made it to the bottom of the thread and wanted to jump to my MeFiMail box, but there's no link to it in the footer!

Can I has please?

By: nickyskye

nickyskye — Fri, 19 Oct 2007 16:49:44 -0800

MeFi mail Wonderful idea. Thanks!

By: quin

quin — Fri, 19 Oct 2007 16:51:26 -0800

So, what does a person see if he tries sending a message to someone who has him blocked?

May I suggest:

'No. They don't like you.'
'Denied, bitches!'
'Restraining order violation!'
'Stalker-filter has been engaged'

or just

'You lose'

By: caddis

caddis — Fri, 19 Oct 2007 16:51:38 -0800

This is one of the best things you have added to MeFi Matt. Like a lot of folks around here I have a dedicated email address for MeFi (and MeCha) but because of that I don't check it as often as I should and I sometimes take several weeks to get back to people, not that I get that much mail. I think I might a little more shy say than Coldchef and all his reaching and touching people an all. ;) Anyway, that little reminder in the upper corner should stop that. Very cool.

By: strangeleftydoublethink

strangeleftydoublethink — Fri, 19 Oct 2007 16:51:38 -0800

It's called MeFi Mail. Just one more character and no one will be confused.

Can we call it MFmail and have Samuel Jackson saying, "You've got mutha fucking mail!" whenever you have new mail? Please.

By: blacklite

blacklite — Fri, 19 Oct 2007 16:52:18 -0800

What the hell is this for? I don't want to talk to you people.

By: blacklite

blacklite — Fri, 19 Oct 2007 16:54:07 -0800

Also, like jessamyn said, I don't know why it keeps saying welcome back. It's like some kind of confused greeter who knows only one phrase in English.

Welcome back!
yes, hello.
Welcome back!
yes, we did this--
Welcome back welcome back!

By: goodnewsfortheinsane

goodnewsfortheinsane — Fri, 19 Oct 2007 16:57:39 -0800

"Hello mister!"

By: goodnewsfortheinsane

goodnewsfortheinsane — Fri, 19 Oct 2007 16:59:31 -0800

Shenanigans aside, this is really damn useful, and I thank Matt & pb from the bottom of my inbox.

By: carmina

carmina — Fri, 19 Oct 2007 17:05:10 -0800

MefiMail? Seems useful, thanks.

But, please, kill the 'welcome back' greeting. Please.

By: gsteff

gsteff — Fri, 19 Oct 2007 17:05:25 -0800

Using this should be called sending someone a mema.

By: spinturtle

spinturtle — Fri, 19 Oct 2007 17:06:20 -0800

or a memo

By: gsteff

gsteff — Fri, 19 Oct 2007 17:07:56 -0800

*smacks spinturtle*

By: Catfry

Catfry — Fri, 19 Oct 2007 17:08:25 -0800

It's the Filtermail!

By: spinturtle

spinturtle — Fri, 19 Oct 2007 17:09:35 -0800

yay! my first mefi spanking!

By: The Deej

The Deej — Fri, 19 Oct 2007 17:09:37 -0800

I'm disappointed this was rolled out without a Steve-Jobs-like keynote address by Matt.
-------
We've got something we think you will really... ... really... ... like. When we looked at MetaFilter, we thought, what would most users like to have to make flaming easier, PLUS... PLUS... offer an alternative to thread-shitting. We came up with something and we are REALLY... SUPER... excited about it. It just takes ONE CLICK. One click. One click. And you can send a message to any MeFi member. Any. Mefi. Member. It's called... MeFi Mail, and we think you're going to love it!

Oh... and one more thing... It holds... two. Billion. Songs.

Two. Billion. Songs.

By: humannaire

humannaire — Fri, 19 Oct 2007 17:11:30 -0800

I just wish reklaw was here to see this.

By: humannaire

humannaire — Fri, 19 Oct 2007 17:12:17 -0800

BTW, I vote FiMail.

By: maudlin

maudlin — Fri, 19 Oct 2007 17:12:40 -0800

I'm not seeing any welcome back message at all (Firefox/Windows), nor am I hearing the gentle voice of John Sebastian. What gives?

By: pb

pb — Fri, 19 Oct 2007 17:12:42 -0800

aubilenon, you can't unblock someone once you've blocked them. That's why the alert that pops up has the all-caps message: "YOU CAN'T UNDO THIS".

And if someone's blocked you the message isn't anything that colorful. It's just a simple "Sorry, this member has blocked messages from you."

By: The corpse in the library

The corpse in the library — Fri, 19 Oct 2007 17:13:19 -0800

I would like to be able to go from message to message without having to go back to the inbox first.

That's not a problem for some of us. (Sniff.)

By: gsteff

gsteff — Fri, 19 Oct 2007 17:13:36 -0800

If we opt out of this, can the little mail icon be removed from our headers?

By: mathowie

mathowie — Fri, 19 Oct 2007 17:13:39 -0800

But, please, kill the 'welcome back' greeting. Please.

What should it say? "you are logged in as:" is pretty long.

By: carsonb

carsonb — Fri, 19 Oct 2007 17:14:09 -0800

What's the reasoning behind not being able to undo message blocking? Can you opt out and then opt in later?

By: mathowie

mathowie — Fri, 19 Oct 2007 17:14:32 -0800

If we opt out of this, can the little mail icon be removed from our headers?

Yeah, it should, I just forgot to put in the check for that.

By: carsonb

carsonb — Fri, 19 Oct 2007 17:15:59 -0800

What should it say? "you are logged in as:" is pretty long.

"Here's your mail, user:"

By: carmina

carmina — Fri, 19 Oct 2007 17:16:18 -0800

What should it say? "you are logged in as:" is pretty long.

Let it say nothing. Just the user name highlighted.

By: flabdablet

flabdablet — Fri, 19 Oct 2007 17:16:26 -0800

If I've got MeFi Mail set to forward to my Gmail address, and I opt out of MeFi Mail, does forwarding still happen? I think it should; I have no wish to interact with and/or maintain yet another PM system, but I have no objections to people contacting me however they prefer.

Also: the mail verification email is worded in a way that clearly assumes it's got to the right person, and encourages unthinking idiots to click blindly on a link in their email. I'd be much happier if it were worded something like this:

You are receiving this message because somebody has attempted to use your email address to verify an account at Metafilter. If it wasn't you, simply delete and ignore this message, and no further action will be taken.

If you do wish to verify your Metafilter account, with username flabdablet and this email address, please copy the following address and paste it into your browser's address bar

https://www.metafilter.com/contribute/verify-email.mefi?k=428C9183EEF83704AD8A4BED2B31F905

or supply the following verification code when asked to do so by the Metafilter login page:

428C9183EEF83704AD8A4BED2B31F905

If you have any questions, you can always contact a site administrator directly:

http://www.metafilter.com/contact/

Thanks!

I also see checkbox misalignment like EB's, since I'm also forcing my own browser fonts.

By: pb

pb — Fri, 19 Oct 2007 17:17:18 -0800

carsonb, the idea is that people shouldn't block messages from others lightly. The MeFi Mail must flow! or something like that.

By: oneirodynia

oneirodynia — Fri, 19 Oct 2007 17:20:20 -0800

Thank you, this is great. I shall treasure my solitary message FOREVER.

Instead of "Welcome back" how about "Hello"?

By: pb

pb — Fri, 19 Oct 2007 17:20:48 -0800

If I've got MeFi Mail set to forward to my Gmail address, and I opt out of MeFi Mail, does forwarding still happen?

No. And the "send MeFi Mail" link disappears from your profile. So the only way people could send you MeFi Mail at that point is by replying to an existing message. And in that case, you won't get MeFi Mail forwarded to you. Opting-out means you don't want to look at MeFi Mail anymore.

By: Rhomboid

Rhomboid — Fri, 19 Oct 2007 17:21:33 -0800

Question: If I opt-out of MeFi mail in my preferences but then I send a PM to someone, what happens when they try to reply?

By: puke & cry

puke & cry — Fri, 19 Oct 2007 17:25:01 -0800

Could you take the exclamation point out of "Your inbox is empty!" so that it sounds less like it's mocking me?

By: terrapin

terrapin — Fri, 19 Oct 2007 17:27:51 -0800

Obligatory, "what about the Jabber server, matt?"

By: 31d1

31d1 — Fri, 19 Oct 2007 17:28:28 -0800

"...you must forward this metamail to two users and favorite 10 comments in the next two hours, or something will watch you poop..."

Uh-oh.

By: goodnewsfortheinsane

goodnewsfortheinsane — Fri, 19 Oct 2007 17:29:33 -0800

Huh? Mefi Mail just changed my ISP's POP settings.

By: bonaldi

bonaldi — Fri, 19 Oct 2007 17:30:05 -0800

"...you must forward this metamail to two users and favorite 10 comments in the next two hours, or something will watch you poop..."

Dammit, I thought I was the first to think of that!

By: pb

pb — Fri, 19 Oct 2007 17:30:35 -0800

Rhomboid, good point. If you opt-out of MeFi Mail, you can't send messages. Now.

And you can't send messages to someone who has opted-out of MeFi Mail. A message will tell you, "Sorry, this user has opted out of MeFi Mail," before you can compose your reply to them.

By: carmina

carmina — Fri, 19 Oct 2007 17:32:00 -0800

puke&cry is my long lost sibling.

By: psmealey

psmealey — Fri, 19 Oct 2007 17:40:32 -0800

A++++ DEFINATELY WOULD TYR AGAIN

By: psmealey

psmealey — Fri, 19 Oct 2007 17:41:09 -0800

btw, this is fucking good

By: snsranch

snsranch — Fri, 19 Oct 2007 17:43:02 -0800

This...kicks...ASS!!!!!!!!11!!!!!!!!! Thanks!

By: wemayfreeze

wemayfreeze — Fri, 19 Oct 2007 17:43:39 -0800

This is the dopest, though I'm somewhat skeptical about how much it will change my life. I want milfmails, but I don't think I'll get milfmails.

By: Ethereal Bligh

Ethereal Bligh — Fri, 19 Oct 2007 17:44:06 -0800

aubilenon, you can't unblock someone once you've blocked them. That's why the alert that pops up has the all-caps message: ‘YOU CAN'T UNDO THIS’.”

This is not a good idea.

By: spiderskull

spiderskull — Fri, 19 Oct 2007 17:45:13 -0800

This has made my life complete.

It solves so many problems. Now if we could have a "send anonymous a message" that sends it to the actual person, that would be perfect -- then people don't have to keep making new throwaway emails (e.g. help_me_with_my_herpes@gmail.com).

By: dreamsign

dreamsign — Fri, 19 Oct 2007 17:46:46 -0800

Wow. Just finished some software tweaks I was a tad worried about, and came back online to see... I have 1 new message on MeFi mail. ... ok, then.

Very cool!

By: jessamyn

jessamyn — Fri, 19 Oct 2007 17:47:31 -0800

How about just "welcome" and not "welcome back"?

By: grouse

grouse — Fri, 19 Oct 2007 17:47:50 -0800

This will wendell.

By: The Deej

The Deej — Fri, 19 Oct 2007 17:48:03 -0800

My first MeFi Mail was to the most beautifulest MeFite in the history of forever in the whole widest world.

By: grouse

grouse — Fri, 19 Oct 2007 17:48:24 -0800

jessamyn: how about just "hello?"

By: wendell

wendell — Fri, 19 Oct 2007 17:49:21 -0800

I wonder what wendell thinks of all this.
I imagine we will all receive a rambling, somewhat confusing mass-message on the topic sometime soon.

Just for the record, the only MeFiMail I've gotten in the last 3 hours was Matt's Welcome message. Surprised I haven't been inundated with "now you know how it feels".

Or maybe I've been preemptively blocked by most of the MeFi Membership? Is that possible? Should I MeFiMail Malor just to make his day? Do I care? Nope.

By: kirkaracha

kirkaracha — Fri, 19 Oct 2007 17:52:17 -0800

Please change mine so it says, "Welcome back, Kotter" and plays a Horshack sample.

By: kirkaracha

kirkaracha — Fri, 19 Oct 2007 17:52:38 -0800

Actually, please don't.

By: puke & cry

puke & cry — Fri, 19 Oct 2007 17:52:47 -0800

By: Mr. President Dr. Steve Elvis America

Mr. President Dr. Steve Elvis America — Fri, 19 Oct 2007 17:54:00 -0800

Is there a way to turn this off? I don't wish to be contacted.

By: wendell

wendell — Fri, 19 Oct 2007 17:54:01 -0800

Correction: grouse sent me a "This will wendell" just before I posted - and just before I sent HIM a "This will wendell". Thank you.

By: quin

quin — Fri, 19 Oct 2007 17:54:06 -0800

My first MeFi Mail was to the most beautifulest MeFite in the history of forever in the whole widest world.

Aww shucks Deej, thanks.

By: Brandon Blatcher

Brandon Blatcher — Fri, 19 Oct 2007 17:56:23 -0800

It took two hours for me to get porn in it.

Had to take it to dinner first, huh?

Matt, pretty cool, thank you.

By: The Deej

The Deej — Fri, 19 Oct 2007 17:57:44 -0800

Aww shucks Deej, thanks.
posted by quin

I just sent yours quin. Enjoy.

By: carsonb

carsonb — Fri, 19 Oct 2007 17:59:11 -0800

aubilenon, you can't unblock someone once you've blocked them. That's why the alert that pops up has the all-caps message: ‘YOU CAN'T UNDO THIS’.”

This is not a good idea.

Seconded. You really should be able to undo something like that.

You know, that's my first thought too. But the reason it's like that is so that people will think twice before blocking someone they're upset with and only use it for blocking spammers. Since you don't really want people blocking other users, why not remove the function altogether?

By: humannaire

humannaire — Fri, 19 Oct 2007 17:59:23 -0800

My first MeFi Mail was to the most beautifulest MeFite in the history of forever in the whole widest world.

Aww shucks Deej, thanks.

By: The Deej

The Deej — Fri, 19 Oct 2007 18:01:13 -0800

MeFites are so humble.

By: carsonb

carsonb — Fri, 19 Oct 2007 18:03:16 -0800

And here I thought nobody noticed. Thanks, Deej!

By: mosessis

mosessis — Fri, 19 Oct 2007 18:07:33 -0800

matt & pb, you guys are awesome. I feel like you really nailed it.
*off to mail some of my favorite askme answerers*

By: puke & cry

puke & cry — Fri, 19 Oct 2007 18:13:12 -0800

Since you don't really want people blocking other users, why not remove the function altogether?

Hmm, that's a good point. I was thinking mainly of when I get wasted and randomly block a bunch of people for no reason what so ever, then wake up the next day and have no recollection of it. I demand this site take into account my excessive drinking!

By: -t

-t — Fri, 19 Oct 2007 18:16:38 -0800

I really wanted to work in the Nigerian joke, but just didn't have it in me. Instead, I salute your endeavors.

Very well done, seriously.

By: tiamat

tiamat — Fri, 19 Oct 2007 18:16:57 -0800

This seems like a wonderful idea. The last (and first) time I actually tried sending real email to the addresses in people's profiles I got reamed out in Meta for all sorts of reasons. This way it's a more formal way, and an internal system. I like it.

By: Item

Item — Fri, 19 Oct 2007 18:17:24 -0800

On the drinking note, is there any way we can "unsend" a sent message? Otherwise, I'm afraid I'm about to get banned.

By: mosessis

mosessis — Fri, 19 Oct 2007 18:24:57 -0800

sub-pony request: is it possible to get the same html buttons in mefimail that we get on the posting boxes (bold, italic, link)?

By: mosessis

mosessis — Fri, 19 Oct 2007 18:25:43 -0800

and maybe a preview so we can preview the html?

By: interrobang

interrobang — Fri, 19 Oct 2007 18:27:41 -0800

I need mail! I'm so, so lonely!

By: interrobang

interrobang — Fri, 19 Oct 2007 18:31:35 -0800

All right, I'm not lonely any more.

By: carsonb

carsonb — Fri, 19 Oct 2007 18:32:39 -0800

;)

By: sugarfish

sugarfish — Fri, 19 Oct 2007 18:40:56 -0800

I'ma send some Mefi Mails that say

I GAV U A FAVRIT

BUT I DALETED IT

So, you know, watch out for those.

By: maudlin

maudlin — Fri, 19 Oct 2007 18:41:38 -0800

carsonb is the milkman of human kindness.

By: ALongDecember

ALongDecember — Fri, 19 Oct 2007 18:43:24 -0800

Thanks for the feature. If we want to signal Matamyex (I'm so sorry) for admin/tech requests, should we Mefi Mail them or is the contact link at the bottom still the way to go?

By: thatothrgirl

thatothrgirl — Fri, 19 Oct 2007 18:48:52 -0800

I thought we *all* were the most beautifulest MeFite's. (at least that is why my mom told me).

By: ALongDecember

ALongDecember — Fri, 19 Oct 2007 18:49:27 -0800

Oh, and can we send messages to disabled accounts? It appears it is an option but can the person actually retrieve it?

By: serazin

serazin — Fri, 19 Oct 2007 18:49:41 -0800

HORRAY! COOL!

By: The Deej

The Deej — Fri, 19 Oct 2007 18:51:08 -0800

I sent interrobang mail, to spread the milk of human kindness, and he threatened to block me.

The hell?!

By: jessamyn

jessamyn — Fri, 19 Oct 2007 18:51:38 -0800

AlongDecember: contact form will get to me faster than MeFiMail. I'd love to not get any admin stuff in MyMeMail. In other words, use the contact link to contct us.

By: carsonb

carsonb — Fri, 19 Oct 2007 19:00:13 -0800

maudlin:

Any spare, aftermarket, bolt-on, strap-on, and/or ingested parts are to be provided by the user.

Your order is guaranteed a poseur. Not only will our product be washable, it will probably need a wash sooner or later.

No.

Only if by extraordinary you mean hawt.

By: carsonb

carsonb — Fri, 19 Oct 2007 19:01:09 -0800

And I will totally reply to all of your damn MeFi males in-thread, yep. Just this once.

By: brain cloud

brain cloud — Fri, 19 Oct 2007 19:03:22 -0800

So when threads get derailed, will we see a message from Jessamyn saying "Take it to MefiMail!!!!"?

If the Lords of Kobol wish it, let it be so. Oh please, let it be so.

By: BitterOldPunk

BitterOldPunk — Fri, 19 Oct 2007 19:04:05 -0800

Matamyex

I think preferred usage is "matamyntex". At least, I'm saying it, and thus attempting to make it so.

And I look forward to seeing how MeFiMail (and can't we all get behind "MeMail"? That's so much better) affects the social dynamics of our little ~~circle jerk~~ tea party. Will it promote camaraderie and relieve some of the bloviation in MetaTalk as users are admonished to take it to MeFiMail? Will it cause threads to dry up as the main participants take their discussions private? Will we have richer interactions with clever, witty people we pretend to know?

How exciting.

By: flabdablet

flabdablet — Fri, 19 Oct 2007 19:06:03 -0800

Okay, so is there some way I can tell MeFi Mail not to hold copies of stuff that it forwards to my Gmail address?

I think it's great that there's now an easy way for members to mail each other, but I really, really don't want to have to do regular maintenance on yet another PM inbox.

By: that girl

that girl — Fri, 19 Oct 2007 19:07:01 -0800

Why does the plain theme still have the white parens for new comments? This has driven me vaguely crazy for a while now.

By: maudlin

maudlin — Fri, 19 Oct 2007 19:08:10 -0800

I was starting to freak out a little bit just now when I noticed that I hadn't received any MeMail since 4:19 PM*. But then I noticed that all the times in my mail folders are in PST and not what's set in my profile, so my last message was actually about three hours ago. (That's still a long, long time. Am I so easily thrown aside? *sniff*)

Are the times going to stay as PST for everyone, or will they reflect our personal settings?

*Hey, thanks for the reply, carsonb. I especially appreciated the attached image in the original message. I think that's a distance record for humans.

By: deborah

deborah — Fri, 19 Oct 2007 19:10:40 -0800

Nifty app! Thanks, mathowie and pb!

*repeatedly refreshes waiting for the MeMail to roll in*

*still waiting*

By: starman

starman — Fri, 19 Oct 2007 19:17:17 -0800

This is cool. Adds to the BBS feel. Now how about TradeWars 2002?

By: carsonb

carsonb — Fri, 19 Oct 2007 19:18:23 -0800

When I'm looking at my mail (inbox and/or sent) may I please click the names in the list to mail again? No? To their profiles so I can mail them again from there, then?

By: goodnewsfortheinsane

goodnewsfortheinsane — Fri, 19 Oct 2007 19:19:19 -0800

jessamynAdmin: "How about just "welcome" and not "welcome back"?"

How about "Welcome Home"?

You're a Burner, right?

Tee-hee.

By: carsonb

carsonb — Fri, 19 Oct 2007 19:33:13 -0800

Dining one night a parson
Called out "Quickly, garçon!
Look at this soufflé,
It tastes like a toupée
That your chef wiped his grand arse on!"

By: jessamyn

jessamyn — Fri, 19 Oct 2007 19:37:16 -0800

You're a Burner, right?

* removes YouTube comment *

By: ZachsMind

ZachsMind — Fri, 19 Oct 2007 19:45:44 -0800

"What should it say?"

'Sup, user?

By: ZachsMind

ZachsMind — Fri, 19 Oct 2007 19:49:30 -0800

Oh...

And not that this isn't great, cuz it is, but before this people could just email me by... y'know... emailing me.

I mean this is cool. It'd be even cooler if I were to actually have zachsmind@metafilter.com as an email address. Still, beyond the obvious novelty of it, I don't get the why behind it.

Am I just missing something fundamental here?

By: goodnewsfortheinsane

goodnewsfortheinsane — Fri, 19 Oct 2007 19:50:58 -0800

Pony request:

Along the lines of "You need more MeFi in your life, after >1 week of not logging in, it should say: "Well look who's come crawling back."

*notices that MefiQuote preserves the "Admin" in admin quotes, doesn't get the "*removes YouTube comment*" comment, thus cedes victory to jess*

By: carsonb

carsonb — Fri, 19 Oct 2007 19:51:12 -0800

Am I just missing something damental here?

By: Blazecock Pileon

Blazecock Pileon — Fri, 19 Oct 2007 20:07:50 -0800

Now I can finally email those kids to get off my damned lawn!

By: Abiezer

Abiezer — Fri, 19 Oct 2007 20:15:31 -0800

Someone will always bring da mental, never you fear.

By: nickyskye

nickyskye — Fri, 19 Oct 2007 20:24:40 -0800

Having soo much fun with this MeFi mail thing. It rocks!

By: stavrosthewonderchicken

stavrosthewonderchicken — Fri, 19 Oct 2007 20:41:00 -0800

Snazzy, thanks!

By: The Deej

The Deej — Fri, 19 Oct 2007 20:42:38 -0800

Am I just missing something fundamental here?
posted by ZachsMind

I'll fill you in... once you click on the Kid Nation link. :)

By: cortex

cortex — Fri, 19 Oct 2007 20:42:44 -0800

doesn't get the "*removes YouTube comment*"

Think back to a time—a time not so long ago—when you yourself invoked the topic of youtube commentary.

By: kuujjuarapik

kuujjuarapik — Fri, 19 Oct 2007 20:43:27 -0800

Thanks. The regular email was cranky.

By: yhbc

yhbc — Fri, 19 Oct 2007 20:45:14 -0800

I bet poor Miguel's mailbox is busting at the seams by now.

By: click

click — Fri, 19 Oct 2007 20:50:40 -0800

Awesome new addition. Thank you!

By: BigSky

BigSky — Fri, 19 Oct 2007 20:53:40 -0800

Thank you, Matt.

By: madamjujujive

madamjujujive — Fri, 19 Oct 2007 20:55:07 -0800

Thanks for the new toy because I was getting just a tad too productive there with my work and it was scaring me. I needed a new distraction!

This is mega cool, thanks! Surprises are fun!

By: homunculus

homunculus — Fri, 19 Oct 2007 20:57:17 -0800

Very nice. Thanks!

By: orange swan

orange swan — Fri, 19 Oct 2007 20:58:56 -0800

Such a nice pony!

I have less and less reason to spend time in the non-Metafilter world.

[drafts first mash note]

By: yhbc

yhbc — Fri, 19 Oct 2007 21:00:04 -0800

So, when do we get to change our passwords?

By: jacalata

jacalata — Fri, 19 Oct 2007 21:04:29 -0800

ZachsMind: a lot(?) of people don't want to expose an actual email address to mefi, for fear of wendell/Prince Nmboko/armageddon, but do want to communicate. Some of them just set up a dedicated mefi email address, some just suck it up and expose themselves, and some go incommunicado. Now there is a communication method that doesn't put your inbox at risk.

By: edgeways

edgeways — Fri, 19 Oct 2007 21:04:39 -0800

This thread is like picture day in high school.

By: yhbc

yhbc — Fri, 19 Oct 2007 21:05:55 -0800

And, on further investigation, when can we change our currently-munged email addresses? I got the response email, but when I replied to it I got the error message, and my email is still munged in my profile.

By: yhbc

yhbc — Fri, 19 Oct 2007 21:07:14 -0800

Never Mind. The SECOND time, it worked. Nice job, gang!

By: flabdablet

flabdablet — Fri, 19 Oct 2007 21:09:05 -0800

some just suck it up and expose themselves

People like that just lower the tone.

By: mathowie

mathowie — Fri, 19 Oct 2007 21:11:05 -0800

is it possible to get the same html buttons in mefimail that we get on the posting boxes (bold, italic, link)?

All HTML is stripped, so uh, nope.

By: mathowie

mathowie — Fri, 19 Oct 2007 21:12:04 -0800

So, when do we get to change our passwords?

In the next couple weeks. We're about half done redoing the whole user system and that will be the next big long overdue feature.

By: bru

bru — Fri, 19 Oct 2007 21:18:35 -0800

This is very cool, thanks.

It could be interesting to measure the growth rate of Fimail traffic. I am used to sitemail in other sites, but I wonder what effect (if any) can the introduction of easier one to one communication have on the dynamics of the community.

By: dhartung

dhartung — Fri, 19 Oct 2007 21:20:03 -0800

In the next couple weeks. We're about half done redoing the whole user system and that will be the next big long overdue feature.

Saints preserve us!

By: Phire

Phire — Fri, 19 Oct 2007 21:31:13 -0800

[obligatory snark about lack of people willing to email this unpopular, shunned n00b]

on the other hand, I can spam other people now. woohoo!

By: Kattullus

Kattullus — Fri, 19 Oct 2007 21:37:33 -0800

Has anyone mentioned how cool this is yet?

A hundred people, you say!

Well, let me make it a hundred and one.

This is the damn coolestest.

and now I can finally build my army

By: taz

taz — Fri, 19 Oct 2007 21:46:39 -0800

I'm having more fun than I should admit to.

Thanks very much for all your hard work, pb and Matt. And thanks for keeping reg. email addresses, and the forwarding option as well. Lovely.

By: kyleg

kyleg — Fri, 19 Oct 2007 21:47:26 -0800

Now that we have even more tabby stuff to play with, can we have that rounded tab goodness site-wide?

Mmmmm... rounded tabs. Sacrilicious.

By: Alvy Ampersand

Alvy Ampersand — Fri, 19 Oct 2007 21:47:54 -0800

What taz said. Well done, pb & matt.

By: Kattullus

Kattullus — Fri, 19 Oct 2007 21:51:32 -0800

First MeMail! *dances giddily*

By: exlotuseater

exlotuseater — Fri, 19 Oct 2007 21:52:10 -0800

~*exciting*~

I am going to watch that inbox like a hawk, and probably not get anything. But it's a cool idea.

By: Miko

Miko — Fri, 19 Oct 2007 22:01:00 -0800

Adds to the BBS feel.

Agreed. When I saw this earlier, I thought of posting this:

Awesome. Now I can't wait for the bulletin board! And the tavern and the fountain! Anybody got an extra bread?

But I resisted because I thought it might take away from the fact that I think this is an awesome idea. Thank you for the constant improvements to the site, which prove that it is possible to constantly improve something without destroying its essential spirit. Thank you!

By: maryh

maryh — Fri, 19 Oct 2007 22:57:10 -0800

Good work and thanks, Matt.
I haven't been keeping up with meta, and I had no idea you had this up your sleeve. Very nice feature, and I'm grateful you put the time into creating it.
*pat on the back*

By: SassHat

SassHat — Fri, 19 Oct 2007 23:59:59 -0800

Eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!

To quote my response to Mathowie. I encourage you all to send me much mefimail. I have already (over?) used the function.

I go out for ONE NIGHT and this happens? I vow to never leave home again. *waits for some mail*

By: spiderwire

spiderwire — Sat, 20 Oct 2007 01:10:40 -0800

Uh, so there's a DoJ guy at the door, and he wants to know where to plug the wiretap in? Do I tell him post a feature request to MeTa, or what?

By: Samuel Farrow

Samuel Farrow — Sat, 20 Oct 2007 02:54:28 -0800

ME FI FO FUM - IVE GOT A MESSAGE FROM SOMEONE.

By: jouke

jouke — Sat, 20 Oct 2007 05:44:15 -0800

Would be nice if the time of a message would be in local time as specified in preferences instead of in PST.

By: Malor

Malor — Sat, 20 Oct 2007 06:02:07 -0800

NOQUEUE: reject: RCPT from 82.44.354a.static.theplanet.com[74.53.68.130]: 504 5.5.2 <C21373-84730>: Helo command rejected: need fully-qualified hostname; from=<obfuscated@obfuscated.com> to=<obfuscated@obfuscated.com> proto=ESMTP helo=<C21373-84730>

Your mailer isn't using a fully qualified hostname, so my server is rejecting the verification email.

That's a very odd HELO string. If you're trying to write your own mailer, DON'T DO THAT. Hand off to a real mailer. Real mailers have anywhere from full-time years to decades in development. No matter how much effort and time you put in, any mailer you write will be inferior by orders of magnitude to postfix or sendmail. The SMTP protocol is simple. A robust mailer is extremely complex. Don't fool yourself into thinking you can write one. Anything you hand-roll won't be any damn good unless you're willing to put a huge amount of time into it.

There are remarkably good programs available that are entirely free. (I recommend Postfix, as it's easy to configure, and very fast and powerful.) Hand off to one of those instead. You'll be glad you did.

By: Malor

Malor — Sat, 20 Oct 2007 06:03:41 -0800

(and if you already are doing that, then you need to reconfigure your mail program, as it's got a very odd outbound HELO.)

By: Your Time Machine Sucks

Your Time Machine Sucks — Sat, 20 Oct 2007 06:21:31 -0800

Just piping up to say this is hugely cool and fucking impressive. Also, I find the "welcome back" charming. Thanks!

By: Greg Nog

Greg Nog — Sat, 20 Oct 2007 06:30:31 -0800

I agree with eyeballkid; it would be nice to see the things to which I'm replying as I type a response, because I have a goldfish-like inability to remember what happened a few seconds ago.

By: blue_beetle

blue_beetle — Sat, 20 Oct 2007 07:02:19 -0800

Are we turning the server logs back on now again too?

By: Ethereal Bligh

Ethereal Bligh — Sat, 20 Oct 2007 07:11:17 -0800

“A robust mailer is extremely complex. Don't fool yourself into thinking you can write one. Anything you hand-roll won't be any damn good unless you're willing to put a huge amount of time into it.”

No, no, no. You don't understand. It makes perfect sense to reinvent the wheel in ColdFusion and implement it crudely without features, robustness, and proven usability because that's what you do with web apps, right? Otherwise, the alternative would be to have two different email addresses and we couldn't have that sort of madness, now could we?

By: cashman

cashman — Sat, 20 Oct 2007 07:26:17 -0800

Oh this is dope.

By: hadjiboy

hadjiboy — Sat, 20 Oct 2007 07:48:27 -0800

This is genius, thanks Matt!

um, can someone send me porn now?

By: The Deej

The Deej — Sat, 20 Oct 2007 08:13:26 -0800

To protect the stellar reputation of interrobang, may I say that my earlier comment:

I sent interrobang mail, to spread the milk of human kindness, and he threatened to block me.

The hell?!

was just so I could use a "?!" in the comment. (It's kinda an interrobang ya see... heh... )

Interrobang would never block anyone unless they deserved it. He is a fine, upstanding individual of uncommon intelligence and moral fortitude, and once beat Chuck Norris in a knife fight. He also played an key role in mapping the human genome, and has adopted all the children that were rejected by Brad and Anjelina. His scholarship program has made it possible for countless disadvantaged youths to become veterinarians, who in turn specialize in treating only seeing-eye dogs for impoverished blind people, who otherwise could not afford care.

Just wanted to clarify.

By: interrobang

interrobang — Sat, 20 Oct 2007 08:21:27 -0800

That's partially true.

By: Brandon Blatcher

Brandon Blatcher — Sat, 20 Oct 2007 08:44:07 -0800

um, can someone send me porn now?

Here ya go, you naughty boy you.

By: Brandon Blatcher

Brandon Blatcher — Sat, 20 Oct 2007 08:46:37 -0800

Matt, it seems odd that after sending a message, the user is put back in the sent mail folder, as opposed to the inbox.

By: Arturus

Arturus — Sat, 20 Oct 2007 09:08:13 -0800

So, if I make a comment about how this is cool but I expect no one will ever message me, I will likely get multiple messages, making me a wrong, and a liar moreover because it's reasonable to expect this as an outcome when you make a comment like that here. If however, I comment to the opposite effect, that I'm sure I will get messages, then I am rather less likely to actually get any, because the certain element of transgression has been removed, and other people will make a point of not messaging me, just to prove me wrong. This has the effect of rendering the opposite statement also wrong and a lie.

I thought about making a riff off of "Wovon man nicht sprechen kann, darüber muß man schweigen", but realized that I have, in fact, said rather a bit about it. This statement becomes, itself, a riff on that statement, and the circle of metareference is complete. Also, I don't think I could have come up with anything that made sense anyway.

Now I escape before my brain leaks out my ears.

This is cool.

By: Skorgu

Skorgu — Sat, 20 Oct 2007 09:11:35 -0800

Nifty. So it seems like to reply you need to use the milfmail interface even if the messages are forwarded to your regular-email box?

I don't really like per-site message systems, but this seems to be a pretty good implementation.

By: flabdablet

flabdablet — Sat, 20 Oct 2007 09:19:12 -0800

it seems like to reply you need to use the milfmail interface even if the messages are forwarded to your regular-email box?

If this is true, is there a way it could be made not true? Because I really don't like per-site message systems, and would much rather just do everything from Gmail.

By: klangklangston

klangklangston — Sat, 20 Oct 2007 09:20:59 -0800

Hadjiboy— The porn was just in my clipboard, but if you really want it, I bet I can figure out a way to send it to you.

By: jessamyn

jessamyn — Sat, 20 Oct 2007 09:39:37 -0800

is there a way it could be made not true? Because I really don't like per-site message systems, and would much rather just do everything from Gmail.

It's totally fine to just disable MeFiMail entirely and put an email address in your profile. No one who doesn't want another PM system has to use this one.

By: goodnewsfortheinsane

goodnewsfortheinsane — Sat, 20 Oct 2007 09:47:51 -0800

cortexAdmin: "doesn't get the "*removes YouTube comment*"

Think back to a time—a time not so long ago—when you yourself invoked the topic of youtube commentary."

I've given it a good night's rest, and it's all coming back to me vividly: Black Rock City, 1997. I was chilling in front of Camp Now in my pink-feathered manskirt, all hepped up on puffball goofballs, when who would pull up on her bicycle but a certain jessamyn west. "Welcome Home," I said, casually brushing the sand from her hair, "wanna come inside and ride the You Tube?"

*gets idea, abandons story to employ MefiMail for the pursuit of longstanding dream: Metafilter slash fic*

By: mr_crash_davis

mr_crash_davis — Sat, 20 Oct 2007 09:56:16 -0800

Perhaps it would be possible on hover to indicate if there are messages, and how many?

By: cortex

cortex — Sat, 20 Oct 2007 09:58:05 -0800

*checks mail*

Ew!

By: mathowie

mathowie — Sat, 20 Oct 2007 10:04:18 -0800

That's a very odd HELO string. If you're trying to write your own mailer, DON'T DO THAT.

I'm just using the stock built-in IIS SMTP server, and it's just spitting out the default settings for the box in the HELO.

How would I go about making sure the reverse DNS and everything in the HELO message looks more legit? Would this be a DNS/domain thing where I say that mail.metafilter.com is that server?

By: tehloki

tehloki — Sat, 20 Oct 2007 10:04:18 -0800

Anybody who mefimails me gets 10 favorites.

By: mathowie

mathowie — Sat, 20 Oct 2007 10:05:42 -0800

Perhaps it would be possible on hover to indicate if there are messages, and how many?

If you look in the upper right, if you have mail, the icon is orange-ish (lit up) and there's a "3 new" next to it. If the icon is gray and there's no new message, you have no new messages.

By: bonaldi

bonaldi — Sat, 20 Oct 2007 10:21:16 -0800

3 new! Goddamn.

By: tristeza

tristeza — Sat, 20 Oct 2007 10:28:07 -0800

Can one not see one's own "email me" link on the profile page, or something? When I visit my own profile there's no "send MeFi mail" link - and I'm sure I didn't accidentally opt-out or anything. I got Matt's first email, if it matters.

By: The Deej

The Deej — Sat, 20 Oct 2007 10:31:34 -0800

Anybody who mefimails me gets 10 favorites.
posted by tehloki

So, it would be no different than your normal favorite-giving, eh?

By: jessamyn

jessamyn — Sat, 20 Oct 2007 10:33:47 -0800

tristeza: yes, you can't MeFiMail yourself.

By: tristeza

tristeza — Sat, 20 Oct 2007 10:36:26 -0800

Damn, I want porn. :) I tried it when I was logged out, too, and still saw no link on my profile page. I'll go clear cache and see if I can answer my own stupid question.

By: grouse

grouse — Sat, 20 Oct 2007 10:42:22 -0800

yes, you can't MeFiMail yourself.

Well, you can e-mail your sock puppets.

By: dersins

dersins — Sat, 20 Oct 2007 10:44:58 -0800

Anybody who mefimails me gets 10 favorites.
posted by tehloki

Also, anybody who doesn't.

By: jokeefe

jokeefe — Sat, 20 Oct 2007 10:48:18 -0800

I will cherish my mail from MJJJ forever. *wipes tear*

By: matteo

matteo — Sat, 20 Oct 2007 10:52:26 -0800

matt, flickr totally stole this idea from you

By: mr_crash_davis

mr_crash_davis — Sat, 20 Oct 2007 10:52:46 -0800

"If you look in the upper right, if you have mail, the icon is orange-ish (lit up) and there's a "3 new" next to it. If the icon is gray and there's no new message, you have no new messages."

Aha. I didn't know it changed color or anything like that. Sweet!

By: mathowie

mathowie — Sat, 20 Oct 2007 10:55:04 -0800

matt, flickr totally stole this idea from you

heh. It's a total clone of flickr's mail thing, I'll admit that.

By: klangklangston

klangklangston — Sat, 20 Oct 2007 11:18:51 -0800

Y'all can send me an email if you really want unedited porn in your inboxes.

By: goodnewsfortheinsane

goodnewsfortheinsane — Sat, 20 Oct 2007 11:35:11 -0800

What's an "email"?

By: Blazecock Pileon

Blazecock Pileon — Sat, 20 Oct 2007 11:50:26 -0800

How would I go about making sure the reverse DNS and everything in the HELO message looks more legit? Would this be a DNS/domain thing where I say that mail.metafilter.com is that server?

I'm not sure if this is related to the HELO issue, but in general, mixing MX and CNAME records is not advised, which it looks like you may be doing:

Reynolds-Mactel:~ reynolda$ dig MX mail.metafilter.com



; <>> DiG 9.3.4 <>> MX mail.metafilter.com

;; global options:  printcmd

;; Got answer:

;; ->>HEADER<>
;; flags: qr rd ra; QUERY: 1, ANSWER: 2, AUTHORITY: 0, ADDITIONAL: 0



;; QUESTION SECTION:

;mail.metafilter.com.           IN      MX



;; ANSWER SECTION:

mail.metafilter.com.    86400   IN      CNAME   metafilter.com.

metafilter.com.         86400   IN      MX      10 mail.eod.com.



;; Query time: 86 msec

;; SERVER: 10.0.1.1#53(10.0.1.1)

;; WHEN: Sat Oct 20 14:41:32 2007

;; MSG SIZE  rcvd: 76

From the Microsoft KB article above:

However, if an alias record (CNAME) is used for the hostname listed in the MX record, the sending host might re-write the envelope and redirect the RCPT command to the alias hostname and not the original recipient. This might cause the destination SMTP host to reject the message.

Instead, one option is that you could use preprocessor directives to rename headers on your end. Here's a preprocessor from googling "iis smtp preprocessor".

By: bardic

bardic — Sat, 20 Oct 2007 11:57:41 -0800

For fuck's sake cortex, how many times do I have to tell you that I'm not interested in penis enlargement pills?

Jeez.

By: Nelson

Nelson — Sat, 20 Oct 2007 12:15:54 -0800

Nice job on the implementation, guys. Looks like you thought through most of the issues. Works well!

By: klangklangston

klangklangston — Sat, 20 Oct 2007 12:37:14 -0800

"For fuck's sake cortex, how many times do I have to tell you that I'm not interested in penis enlargement pills?

Jeez."

It's a hint, not spam.

(My favorites are always the ones that imply your girlfriend won't respect you unless you can fire a pint of jizz twelve feet.)

By: amberglow

amberglow — Sat, 20 Oct 2007 12:47:37 -0800

this is cool---like our own private inhouse email system--thanks!

By: It's Raining Florence Henderson

It's Raining Florence Henderson — Sat, 20 Oct 2007 12:51:00 -0800

Is twelve feet considered unusually far? No wonder my girlfriend has to wear a kevlar IUD.

By: dersins

dersins — Sat, 20 Oct 2007 12:51:15 -0800

My favorites are always the ones that imply your girlfriend won't respect you unless you can fire a pint of jizz twelve feet

Wait, don't you work in an industry 50% of whose entire message is pretty much just that?

By: Malor

Malor — Sat, 20 Oct 2007 13:06:06 -0800

How would I go about making sure the reverse DNS and everything in the HELO message looks more legit? Would this be a DNS/domain thing where I say that mail.metafilter.com is that server?

I have no freaking idea, being a Linux/Postfix guy myself. But, being a MeFite, that won't stop me from expounding on a subject I don't know well. :)

Configuration for outbound mail is generally pretty simple; you need to tell your mailer what name to identify as ('mailout.metafilter.com' could work, for instance), and then put A and PTR records (forward and reverse lookups) in the DNS for that name. I don't know where you configure the IIS SMTP server, but I imagine it'll be in the IIS control panels somewhere. It's possible it could be brain-dead and non-configurable.

But then you have the problem of bounces. Normally, it's considered polite to at least accept bounces, even if you just throw them away without doing anything with them. You'd need to set a machine to accept and process them, even if 'processing' consists of dumping to the bitbucket. Under Wndows, accepting email generally means running Exchange, which is a huge application with a monster footprint that you really, really don't want on your webserver. (You also don't want to pay the $1K license fee for 5 user accounts.)

Instead, you could probably talk to your hosting provider; they're likely to have all this infrastructure in place, and could route all the email for a given domain to a user account on a Unix box somewhere, which would let you either toss it or massage in a way you would prefer. An hour or two of their time should be able to get that going.

If you want to host it yourself, I can post back more info, but I suspect you'd be best served by piggybacking on someone else's setup.

By: klangklangston

klangklangston — Sat, 20 Oct 2007 13:09:06 -0800

"Wait, don't you work in an industry 50% of whose entire message is pretty much just that?"

My primary magazine's message is more that she won't respect you unless she's 19 and doesn't know any better.

"Is twelve feet considered unusually far? No wonder my girlfriend has to wear a kevlar IUD."

Man of steel, woman of kleenex.

By: rmm

rmm — Sat, 20 Oct 2007 13:39:42 -0800

RSS feed for mail? Yes please and thanks? Eventually? One Day? No rush, but would be handy (a la 'Facebook Notifications'.

Thank you for putting mail on the site in the first place!

By: FelliniBlank

FelliniBlank — Sat, 20 Oct 2007 14:17:47 -0800

I sure hope this means people will start calling me a stupid fucking prissy loser bitch in PMs instead of right there in the thread where everybody can see it.

By: cortex

cortex — Sat, 20 Oct 2007 14:41:14 -0800

RSS feed for mail?

That'd imply publicly exposing the contents of your mail via a URL. Unless I'm missing something, that sounds like a really bad idea. Why not just enable forwarding to your email address?

By: !Jim

!Jim — Sat, 20 Oct 2007 15:20:49 -0800

RSS feed for mail?

That'd imply publicly exposing the contents of your mail via a URL. Unless I'm missing something, that sounds like a really bad idea. Why not just enable forwarding to your email address?

GMail does it, apparently.

By: spiderwire

spiderwire — Sat, 20 Oct 2007 16:36:25 -0800

w/r/t Malor's comment:

Seems like if the IIS setup doesn't even know how to format its HELO string properly, you'd probably be better off just running everything through postfix instead. It will do a much better job of setting everything up and negotiating the connections -- all you have to do is give it the messages and then parse them when they come back.

Since you're obviously doing some parsing anyway that should be trivial, no?

By: spiderwire

spiderwire — Sat, 20 Oct 2007 16:41:14 -0800

By: ZachsMind

ZachsMind — Sat, 20 Oct 2007 17:01:05 -0800

I don't mean to be a wet blanket. I'd like to send and recieve FiMail, but I can't think of a reason to bother anyone, or to get anyone to bother me. So currently, as cool as this is, it's kinda like hanging fuzzy dice from my rear view mirror.

By: wendell

wendell — Sat, 20 Oct 2007 17:11:42 -0800

Since you already have the fuzzy dice, can I interest you in a Mathowie bobblehead? (First in a series that will include jessamyn, cortex, pb, quonsar, stavros and Oolong the Bunny)

they did market research on a wendell bobblehead, but I did not test well. sigh

By: Brockles

Brockles — Sat, 20 Oct 2007 17:19:06 -0800

Am I the first to be propositioned on Mefimail?

Any feature that gets me sent offers of willing flesh gets two thumbs up from me. Well. Two thumbs and my man-nubbin, if I'm honest.

By: ZachsMind

ZachsMind — Sat, 20 Oct 2007 17:24:33 -0800

Would it be bad taste to start a virtual snowball in FiMail? Especially since I'm in Texas and only see snow on the occasional February?

By: ZachsMind

ZachsMind — Sat, 20 Oct 2007 17:26:00 -0800

The above-mentioned term "virtual snowball" should read "virtual snowball fight" in actuality. Bleargh.

By: Brockles

Brockles — Sat, 20 Oct 2007 17:29:35 -0800

The above-mentioned term "virtual snowball" should read "virtual snowball fight"

I did wonder. I had a hideous image going through my head until you clarified that.

/gags

By: smackfu

smackfu — Sat, 20 Oct 2007 17:55:29 -0800

RSS feed for mail?

GMail does it, apparently.

It looks like GMail does it by using a single URL that's the same for everyone, and presumably it looks at your Google cookie to identify/authenticate you.

This works ok, but if you're not using the feed in a browser, your program needs to be able to fake cookies.

By: anthill

anthill — Sat, 20 Oct 2007 18:55:42 -0800

HELLO PLEASE GET MEFIMAIL OFF MY COMPUTER IT IS DELETING MY INTERNETS AND YAHOO THANKS

By: Blazecock Pileon

Blazecock Pileon — Sat, 20 Oct 2007 19:02:40 -0800

That'd imply publicly exposing the contents of your mail via a URL. Unless I'm missing something, that sounds like a really bad idea.

You can implement authentication for RSS feeds. 37signals does this for their Basecamp project software.

By: steef

steef — Sat, 20 Oct 2007 19:08:36 -0800

Anyone who MeFiMails me gets a link to a picture of my cat.

By: Arturus

Arturus — Sat, 20 Oct 2007 19:23:02 -0800

Authenticated RSS is lovely.

By: sparkletone

sparkletone — Sat, 20 Oct 2007 20:01:00 -0800

HAY.

My MeFi Mail from this "mat" "howie" contained not a welcome message, but anthrax!

By: maxwelton

maxwelton — Sat, 20 Oct 2007 21:22:08 -0800

My mail icon, so sad and grey.

By: jessamyn

jessamyn — Sat, 20 Oct 2007 21:42:40 -0800

My mail icon, so sad and grey.

fixed that for you. I would have sent you a free coupon for 1 Inline Image but I can't get the printer to work right.

By: hadjiboy

hadjiboy — Sat, 20 Oct 2007 22:32:04 -0800

Jeez, I was really looking forward to some good porn today, but nothing, bupkis.

*walks off disappointed*

By: sparkletone

sparkletone — Sat, 20 Oct 2007 23:07:06 -0800

Thing I just noticed (and maybe this has been going on for a while): On certain types of pages, MobileSafari renders the "welcome back $USER | $MAIL_ICON | sign out" bit in a place that is unhelpful, unattractive, etc.

Um. The blue, Mefi Music, user profile and projects... MetaTalk is fine.

Just FYI.

Maybe mathowie would've noticed if his iPhone worked...

By: juv3nal

juv3nal — Sat, 20 Oct 2007 23:09:44 -0800

It took two hours for me to get porn in it.

Who do I have to favorite to get some pr0n?

By: allterrainbrain

allterrainbrain — Sat, 20 Oct 2007 23:20:05 -0800

My first "wow this is cool" post ever, but...

WOW THIS IS COOL

Thank you admins.

By: Jofus

Jofus — Sun, 21 Oct 2007 00:49:52 -0800

I am hungover. Could someone validate me by Mefimail please?

By: PeterMcDermott

PeterMcDermott — Sun, 21 Oct 2007 02:02:07 -0800

I am hungover too. Could someone violate me by Mefimail please?

By: PeterMcDermott

PeterMcDermott — Sun, 21 Oct 2007 02:15:28 -0800

Since you already have the fuzzy dice, can I interest you in a Mathowie bobblehead?

So do you have any of those 'What would Jessamyn Do?' bumper stickers in stock?

By: flapjax at midnite

flapjax at midnite — Sun, 21 Oct 2007 05:11:40 -0800

I am hungover too. Could someone vindicate me by Mefimail please?

By: typewriter

typewriter — Sun, 21 Oct 2007 07:52:31 -0800

I am hungover too. Could someone venerate me by Mefimail please?

By: carmina

carmina — Sun, 21 Oct 2007 09:07:55 -0800

Oh, the hungover... Could someone...

By: NortonDC

NortonDC — Sun, 21 Oct 2007 09:33:13 -0800

How many years do you think it'll take Postroad to respond to the mail?

By: TochterAusElysium

TochterAusElysium — Sun, 21 Oct 2007 09:37:11 -0800

I just noticed the new feature - love it! Thanks! But...could messages have the date on them, please? Or do they, and I missed it?

By: carsonb

carsonb — Sun, 21 Oct 2007 09:47:59 -0800

Date sent is included on the Inbox and Sent Mail pages, but not on individual messages' pages. I still wish I could click on a username from the Inbox or Sent Mail pages, either to Send a new message or be directed to their user page.

By: carmina

carmina — Sun, 21 Oct 2007 09:58:02 -0800

I repeat:

carsonb is the milkman of human kindness.
posted by maudlin at 9:41 PM on October 19

By: carmina

carmina — Sun, 21 Oct 2007 09:58:51 -0800

And of course the new feature is being used as.we.speak.

By: carsonb

carsonb — Sun, 21 Oct 2007 10:15:00 -0800

...surely you can understand that I'm psychologically torn between offering words of comfort and maintaining my dominant rank in the social hierarchy.

By: caitlinb

caitlinb — Sun, 21 Oct 2007 10:46:07 -0800

This got rolled out on Monday, and people are talking about all the mash notes they're writing, and all I have is the welcome message.

*sniffle*

By: caitlinb

caitlinb — Sun, 21 Oct 2007 10:46:38 -0800

Did I say Monday? How weird. Friday. The other Monday. Well, if you had a week like mine last week....

By: ZachsMind

ZachsMind — Sun, 21 Oct 2007 13:35:22 -0800

Ditto what CaitlinB said, except for the part about not knowing what day this is. All I have is Matt welcoming me, and I have the sinking suspicion he sent that to everybody.

THE INTERNETS ARE ATTACKING ME!!!1!!

By: delfuego

delfuego — Sun, 21 Oct 2007 13:59:18 -0800

Blazecock, you're mixing up so many different concepts and lookups, I don't know where to start.

1. The hostname mail.metafilter.com has no meaning to anything here -- Matt doesn't use it for anything.
2. If you do an A record lookup on mail.metafilter.com, you get the wildcard reply -- Matt has every non-explicitly-defined hostname on the metafilter.com domain set to CNAME back to metafilter.com (hence the first line of your dig reply).
3. MX records don't exist for hostnames, but rather, for domains -- e.g., "I want to email doe@example.com, so what's the mailhost for the domain example.com?" Your dig lookup is asking for the MX record for the domain mail.metafilter.com -- meaning that you would theoretically be asking "how do I email whoever@mail.metafilter.com?" And the reply is answering that question, not the one you think you're asking.
4. The MS KB article you quote is saying that the actual hostname you use for the FQDN of your mail server -- the name that'll be used in HELO commands -- shouldn't map to an actual IP address via a CNAME record, but rather, should be an A-record-based hostname. Again, it has nothing to do with the domain name you're looking for the MX record for, but rather, it's the hostname of the actual mailserver that that rule concerns itself with.

In any event, I just worked with Matt, and I think all the HELO stuff is all set.

By: wendell

wendell — Sun, 21 Oct 2007 14:09:05 -0800

THE INTERNETS ARE ATTACKING ME!!!1!!

ZM, the internets are ignoring you.

I (MetaFilter's "Spam King") have not yet received a single MeFiMail since the 10AM yesterday. I have sent one MeFi Mail to a member complaining (in irc) that they hadn't gotten anything and I do NOT intend to get in the habit of THAT. That's why I am replying in-thread. Sorry.

By: melissa may

melissa may — Sun, 21 Oct 2007 14:19:48 -0800

It turns out cortex did not know what the phrase "mash note" meant or from whence it came, so for the purposes of public education (from the OED):

B. adj. (attrib.). Designating a letter or other communication expressing infatuation or extravagant admiration, esp. one sent by a stranger. Freq. in mash note. 1880 D. K. RANOUS Jrnl. 12 July Diary of Daly Débutante (1910) 238 He had what is called a ‘mash letter’ from a schoolgirl fourteen years old. 1890 B. HALL Turnover Club 134 He is greatly afflicted by that dreadful bane of fine-looking actors, yclept the ‘mash note’ in the profession. 1899 Chicago Rec. 7 Jan. 4/6, I was writin' mash notes to myself. 1913 R. W. CHAMBERS Gay Rebellion i. 6 That poem seemed to deal a direct blow at this suffragette strike. Several women subscribers sent in mash notes. 1930 W. R. BURNETT Iron Man 85 He gets mash notes by the ton. 1976 National Observer (U.S.) 20 Oct. 21/5 An aged Yugoslav awakens her in the mornings with mash phone calls. 1993 Time Internat. 25 Jan. 49/3 Columbus (‘Dad’) Joiner, the Texas wildcatter who sought money by scouring newspaper obituaries and writing mash notes to wealthy widows.

Bonus: the word "masher" -- so sadly underused these days -- dates from the Victorian/Edwardian period, and means a dandy who likes the company of women; ie, a skirt chaser, a wolf.

Finally, Portland MeFites, if you have a library card, use it and your PIN (the last 4 digits of your phone #, unless you changed it) to access the OED from the Multnomah County Library for absolutely fricking free! How great is that?

Also, memail steef for the cat picture: totally worth it.

By: The Deej

The Deej — Sun, 21 Oct 2007 14:58:15 -0800

Caitlin is no longer lonely. I resisted my mashing impulses however, and was a perfect gentleman. For now!

By: The Wig

The Wig — Sun, 21 Oct 2007 15:10:06 -0800

The little envelope is almost too cute.

By: lodev

lodev — Sun, 21 Oct 2007 15:43:07 -0800

very sweet!
Now that this is working, it's just a matter of implementing password changing (or OpenID!) and you can close Metatalk.

By: FelliniBlank

FelliniBlank — Sun, 21 Oct 2007 16:13:20 -0800

I'm going to start a MeFiMail chain letter where, if you send it on to 10 people within a day, you'll be rewarded with a free illegal trip to Cuba.

By: spiderwire

spiderwire — Sun, 21 Oct 2007 16:43:10 -0800

I'm going to start a MeFiMail chain letter where, if you send it on to 10 people within a day, you'll be rewarded with a free illegal trip to Cuba.

If you forward this email advocating overthrowing the government to 10 people in one day, you get a free trip to Gitmo!

By: LobsterMitten

LobsterMitten — Sun, 21 Oct 2007 17:37:30 -0800

So, suppose you block someone so they can't send you MefiMail messages. What does it look like from their end? Does it look like you got their message but aren't replying, or does it say "sorry, you can't send anything to that person"?

By: jessamyn

jessamyn — Sun, 21 Oct 2007 17:42:29 -0800

LobsterMitten - when you try to send them mail you click the send icon and see a message saying "Sorry, this user has blocked messages from you." I have sacrificed communication between my sock puppet and myself to bring this news to you.

By: Ethereal Bligh

Ethereal Bligh — Sun, 21 Oct 2007 17:45:24 -0800

So I've gotten my first Mefi Mail insult that would probably otherwise have been posted in the thread or not at all (because some are dissuaded by community backlash).

I don't think this is an improvement. Maybe it means less such things for the rest of us to read, but private mail insults are more personal and unpleasant.

Also, I strongly suspect that insults via MeFi Mail are much more tempting than those delivered by regular email, especially for those who want their identity shielded—who overlap (but are not identical) with those who are most belligerent in the first place.

This is an improvement?

If it were possible to temporarily filter-out Mefi Mail from particular people, I would do so in this circumstance because the probability of further such mail from that particular person is much greater in the near-term than the long-term. But since I would be permanently killfiling email from this user, I don't feel that this is the best solution.

Personally, I don't feel comfortable with giving those who wish to be anonymous another outlet to express themselves. At least in the public sphere anonymous people have to face some judgment for the behavior of their anonymous personas. In private, there's so such limit on behavior. Yes, people always have been able to get throwaway email accounts that are anonymous. But an in-site email system is much more intimately tied to that site persona and I have a strong intuition now that I've received my first such email that it will be the first of many—where, in contrast, I've received no more than five or six such emails from mefites in the past (not counting multiples from the same person).

By: Phire

Phire — Sun, 21 Oct 2007 17:55:02 -0800

Jessamyn has a sockpuppet??

By: maudlin

maudlin — Sun, 21 Oct 2007 18:15:30 -0800

Several people have now questioned why blocking has to be permanent, and I'm coming to agree with them. People can make mistakes and block someone accidentally (or drunkenly), people who get pissed at each other can bury the hatchet, and some peope may need to be blocked individually only for a short period.

Currently, we can temporarily opt out of MeFiMail, but that means we'd have to go back to Pony Express (err -- regular email) to communicate.

So there seems to be good community-related reasons to allow temporary blocking. Are there any technical issues making temporary blocking a real headache for the admins?

By: jacalata

jacalata — Sun, 21 Oct 2007 18:24:31 -0800

Jessamyn's sockpuppet.

By: squasha

squasha — Sun, 21 Oct 2007 18:25:33 -0800

lovely. my minimalist (though relatively longtime) participation makes me unlikely to receive much in the way of mefimail, but it still makes a distant lurker feel weirdly connected.

expats need all of that feeling that they can get. thanks.

By: wendell

wendell — Sun, 21 Oct 2007 19:18:42 -0800

I have to assume I am not the only one to get this:

From: carsonb

Subject : Welcome to MeFi Male

Message : MeFi Male is a new private dating system for Metafilter members. To ask another member out, visit their profile and click "Meet Space". From there you can propose a massage, and they will appear in your boudoir. (And your MeFi Mail "Sent Male" page.)

If you'd like to receive your MeFi male at your email address, click "Preferences" at the top of the page, and check the box next to "Table for one?" (You'll probably have to verify your email address first so we know you're the one going solo tonight.) Once checked, click "Save your Preferences" and future MeFi Males will show up in your email inbox.

If you'd rather not have other members sending you MeFi males, head to "Preferences", check the box next to "Opt-out of MeFi Male?", click "Save your Preferences", and the "MeFi Male" option will be removed from your Metafilter profile.

Thanks for checking out hawt MeFi Male. If you'd like to discuss this feature, head to MetaTalk:

http://metatalk.metafilter.com/15101/Beard-Glasses-Love-MeFi-Male

As a parody of Matt's "Welcome" message, I give it a B+ (I'd have had to work hard to do something as funny).
As MeFi Mail's first prank, I hope he sends it to enough humorless MeFites that he immediately replaces me as "MeFi's Spam King".

Remember, his handle is carsonb.

By: typewriter

typewriter — Sun, 21 Oct 2007 19:25:49 -0800

Your plan to replace your own infamy with carsonb is not going to work.

This will not wendell.
This will not carsonb.

It doesn't scan. So it won't catch on!

I thought his spoof was funny.

By: cortex

cortex — Sun, 21 Oct 2007 19:32:47 -0800

carsonb is an anagram for "nob scar".

By: carsonb

carsonb — Sun, 21 Oct 2007 19:37:56 -0800

MeFi Mail: Message
From : tehloki
Subject : Re: Welcome to MeFi Male
Message : This will wendell.

As a parody of Matt's "Welcome" message, I give it a B+

Thanks! I just played mad lib on a theme. In case anyone's wondering, it went out to about 35 people who commented in this thread something to the effect of "I'm sad my inbox is empty" or "Send me MeFi Mail".

By: carsonb

carsonb — Sun, 21 Oct 2007 19:42:41 -0800

I like MeFi Mail, and am happy to exchange non-spam-but-hopefully-still-funny massages with whomever's game. MeFi Mail in profile!

By: Alvy Ampersand

Alvy Ampersand — Sun, 21 Oct 2007 19:48:10 -0800

Funny massages, or "funny" massages?

Maybe this would better handled in MeMail...

By: mathowie

mathowie — Sun, 21 Oct 2007 19:54:55 -0800

Are there any technical issues making temporary blocking a real headache for the admins?

I think looking at the list of everything we had to program in a short period of time, building a "blocked sender management app" seemed like overkill compared to a simple permanent blocked settting. We may create a blocked sender list page where you can turn them off again, but it's a pain in the ass and I have no idea where on earth it should reside (in the mail app? on your already crowded Preferences page?).

Can you unblock flickr people? I've blocked a few comment spammers and assholes and it seemed permanent then.

By: maudlin

maudlin — Sun, 21 Oct 2007 20:09:22 -0800

Apparently you can unblock people on flickr.

There are three ways to block a person:

1. Click the "Block [membername]" link on the person menu
2. Click the "Block this person?" link on their profile page
3. Delete a comment on one of your photos. (You'll see the option to block them, too.)

To see the people you've block on your block list, click the link at the bottom of your Contact List.

People you choose to block are not notified that you've blocked them.

You can release the blocked person anytime. Go to your "Contact List" under "Contacts" in the main menu. Removing the block does not restore anything that was deleted when you blocked them.

By: squasha

squasha — Sun, 21 Oct 2007 20:25:24 -0800

The MeFi Male mail only went out to 35 people?!?

damn, I feel extra special, now. like I'm truly connected...to a small clique of lonely hearts within the greater community of MeFi.

(for the record, I didn't think my initial comment was that pathetic, but now? oy. I'm fine, really. s'truth!)

By: jessamyn

jessamyn — Sun, 21 Oct 2007 20:33:21 -0800

carsonb, I'd get a message massage from you but aren't you like 14?

here is evidence that CORTEX SPAMMED ME.

By: carsonb

carsonb — Sun, 21 Oct 2007 20:39:30 -0800

but aren't you like 14?

I can only estimate on the emotional maturity axis, but I think you're close. By years I'm a coupla demographics out.

By: stavrosthewonderchicken

stavrosthewonderchicken — Sun, 21 Oct 2007 21:18:32 -0800

We may create a blocked sender list page where you can turn them off again, but it's a pain in the ass and I have no idea where on earth it should reside (in the mail app? on your already crowded Preferences page?).

Obviously the place to put within the mail 'app' itself. How you decided to implement it would be limited only by your imagination, but it doesn't seem like a complicated thing to implement on the UI end of things. Throw 'em in a drop-down list with a 'unblock' button beside it (shown if #ofblockedusers>0). Populate a list in a third 'settings' tab with tickboxes beside the names and the button at the bottom. Whatever.

By: LobsterMitten

LobsterMitten — Sun, 21 Oct 2007 22:32:12 -0800

jessamyn: thanks.

By: mathowie

mathowie — Sun, 21 Oct 2007 23:05:15 -0800

stavros, my issue with having it front and center in the mail app is that it would be so seldom used it'd get in the way, but the idea of hiding the option unless your block list is >1 is a good workaround.

By: stavrosthewonderchicken

stavrosthewonderchicken — Sun, 21 Oct 2007 23:14:44 -0800

Yeah, a third tab with settings would be overkill at this point, but I would like to be able to specify things like 'reply in a new window/tab' so I can refer to what people'd said, or maybe/also a 'quote message on reply' too evenutally, and that sort of stuff, if implemented, would make sense on a settings tab, maybe. Or, since you're introducing things like fading alerts, go all out 2.0-stylee and go for collapsing divs or lightboxing or whatever. You're already using Prototype, and there are lots of useful effects built on that that would allow you to do some nice, unobtrusive stuff along those lines if you were so inclined.

(Probably an overall rethink and refactoring of preferences and settings UI overall might be worth considering.)

Also, I know people will probably scream NOOOOOOO! about the collapsing divs and lightboxing idea, but I'm just throwing that out there as a thought, is all.

By: soundofsuburbia

soundofsuburbia — Mon, 22 Oct 2007 02:49:22 -0800

I wonder if this is related to MeFi Mail and all her glorious new envelopes? (This is under, um, OSX 10.4.10/Camino 1.0.4.) I haven't seen noticed that button being there before. But, as they say, this is probably as far from a biggie as you can get.

Anyway, gotta love the new MeFi Mail! Even though my mailbox is very empty and will probably stay that way!

By: languagehat

languagehat — Mon, 22 Oct 2007 06:40:48 -0800

I agree that there should be a way to unblock. We're human, all too human, and sometimes drunk and human.

By: prostyle

prostyle — Mon, 22 Oct 2007 06:47:09 -0800

Don't forget plain text theme users now get a tiny colored bar at the top of the screen as well

Yay, love for the plain texters!

By: dseaton

dseaton — Mon, 22 Oct 2007 06:50:41 -0800

1. This is awesome!

2. If you like the interface on the front page, you can send me a present, because it was totally my idea.

3. Seriously, this is a very nice addition to the site. Thanks!

By: carsonb

carsonb — Mon, 22 Oct 2007 07:15:47 -0800

I agree that there should be a way to unblock. We're human, all too human, and sometimes drunk and human.

Again, if we're gonna factor regret into the system why not disable message blocking altogether? You'd probably be looking at some serious backlash revoking a 'feature', but I bet it'd be less of a headache in the long run.

By: Jofus

Jofus — Mon, 22 Oct 2007 08:06:55 -0800

/blocks Carsonb.

/has headache

/cries

By: mitzyjalapeno

mitzyjalapeno — Mon, 22 Oct 2007 09:40:46 -0800

This is awesome indeed.

AWESOME!

By: From Bklyn

From Bklyn — Mon, 22 Oct 2007 11:03:46 -0800

sweeeet.

Seriously. Hats off.

By: Mitheral

Mitheral — Mon, 22 Oct 2007 11:09:51 -0800

dios writes "but how does one send porn through this thing?"

You need to binhex or uuencode it.

By: spiderwire

spiderwire — Mon, 22 Oct 2007 11:56:02 -0800

"but how does one send porn through this thing?"

You need to binhex or uuencode it.

Or ASCII.

By: cortex

cortex — Mon, 22 Oct 2007 11:59:45 -0800

rot13 ASCII porn made me gay

By: CunningLinguist

CunningLinguist — Mon, 22 Oct 2007 12:46:18 -0800

Dudes. It's broken already. It says I have no mail.

By: maudlin

maudlin — Mon, 22 Oct 2007 14:02:19 -0800

CunningLinguist: enabling carsonb since 2007.

By: UbuRoivas

UbuRoivas — Mon, 22 Oct 2007 17:57:51 -0800

um, matt: I always use the plain text theme, and these new changes cause an ugly blue, green or grey bar to appear up at the top of my window, above all that lovely white.

By: cortex

cortex — Mon, 22 Oct 2007 18:03:29 -0800

Feature, not bug.

By: UbuRoivas

UbuRoivas — Mon, 22 Oct 2007 18:13:13 -0800

how in hell is that a feature?

do. not. want.

(actually, don't really care *that* much; guess i can learn to live with it, but have you seen what it does to Plain Text? - it just don't look right)

By: cortex

cortex — Mon, 22 Oct 2007 18:22:06 -0800

All it does to the plain theme is stick a little stripe at the top. Doesn't break the layout, and does give a quick visual cue as to what site you're on, which is something a lot of people liked the idea of back in the Redesign days.

By: LinusMines

LinusMines — Mon, 22 Oct 2007 18:28:07 -0800

[THIS IS GOOD] + 1

By: UbuRoivas

UbuRoivas — Mon, 22 Oct 2007 18:32:33 -0800

all it does to the plain theme is stick a great, top-heavy wad of dark colour on an otherwise white page.

also, i personally never get confused as to which part of the site i am using, and find it surprising that anybody else might.

anyway, i've spent more time on this than it's worth to me, so i'll shut up now.

(and go teach myself greasemonkey, which is a side benefit)

/grumpy from lack of sleep after nick cave & grinderman last night

By: prostyle

prostyle — Tue, 23 Oct 2007 06:33:29 -0800

...stick a great, top-heavy wad of dark colour...

18 pixels of joy!

By: Ethereal Bligh

Ethereal Bligh — Tue, 23 Oct 2007 06:42:21 -0800

“...stick a great, top-heavy wad of dark colour...”

Some might say that it makes it look less professional.

Not me, though.

By: jack_mo

jack_mo — Tue, 23 Oct 2007 06:45:09 -0800

mathowie writes 'If we opt out of this, can the little mail icon be removed from our headers?

'Yeah, it should, I just forgot to put in the check for that.'

I'm not sure what a check actually is in that context, but it'd be great it you could put it in when you have a minute. Faintly irksome to have the icon there when it's serving no purpose.

(and go teach myself greasemonkey, which is a side benefit)

I have to teach myself how to get Greasemonkey to change CSS for a site approx. once every year, when the plain theme changes in some tiny way.

By: XQUZYPHYR

XQUZYPHYR — Wed, 24 Oct 2007 14:47:29 -0800

I'm probably way behind on this, but I jut noticed today the icon in the upper right corner.

I suppose taking six days to notice it is probably an indicator the icon should be bigger.

By: carsonb

carsonb — Wed, 24 Oct 2007 17:08:43 -0800

I suppose taking six days to notice it is probably an indicator the icon should be bigger.

Or that you should read MetaTalk all day every day.

By: DrtyBlvd

DrtyBlvd — Thu, 25 Oct 2007 06:15:17 -0800

God forbid I had the time :)

By: davejay

davejay — Fri, 26 Oct 2007 01:30:11 -0800

I like this feature. It is very nice and well executed. I have no plans to snark. However, if someone tries to sell me something through it, I will kill you all. Thank you.

By: medusa

medusa — Fri, 26 Oct 2007 21:44:43 -0800

The website of my financial institution allows you to choose the name by which you are greeted. I set up mine so that my choice of name = cunt, because I like seeing the web page of my stuffy financial institution have the message "Hello, cunt" at the top of the screen.

I pretty much forgot I had done this, until one time the site went crazy and I had to call customer service so they could figure out the problem. The rep I spoke to did some trick to look at my account page the way I see it and immediately burst out laughing. I like to think that I made his day.

My point is that instead of saying "welcome back [username]" the message should be "hello cunt" for all users.

By: telstar

telstar — Fri, 26 Oct 2007 21:55:27 -0800

TNAW.

By: carmina

carmina — Sat, 27 Oct 2007 19:46:59 -0800

the message should be "hello cunt" for all users.

ah, no. I'd rather be greeted as 'hello dick'.

By: misanthropicsarah

misanthropicsarah — Mon, 29 Oct 2007 10:29:09 -0800

dude. i swear to god i left a comment in this thread last week. did i? or am i just seriously spacing?

By: cortex

cortex — Mon, 29 Oct 2007 10:39:59 -0800

You're practically a member of the Spacing Guild.

By: sexyrobot

sexyrobot — Mon, 29 Oct 2007 21:00:57 -0800

...the phrase 'rife with abuse' keeps going through my head for some reason...

hm.

By: nax

nax — Sat, 10 Nov 2007 07:53:40 -0800

Am I just hopelessly incompetent at this computator thing (a distinct possibility), or is something not showing up on my screen that allows me to initiate mail (i.e.-- I can't figure out how to write something new; reply is a non-brainer, if someone writes to me, but how do I make a new one?)

I've tried opening MeFi in Netscape (now, don't cry), Safari and Firefox, and I can't figure it out.

(feeling pretty stupid here, but help!?)

By: cortex

cortex — Sat, 10 Nov 2007 08:29:01 -0800

nax, it starts at someone's profile page. Click on someone's name and look in the top left, under Foo's profile, for a link that says "send MeFi Mail". Bing!

If that doesn't work, then something is up.

By: pb

pb — Sat, 10 Nov 2007 08:30:29 -0800

Go to anyone's profile and look for the "send MeFi Mail" link under their username at the top of the page. (If a particular member doesn't have a send MeFi Mail link, they've opted out of the system.) If you have Metafilter contacts, click the "Contacts" tab in MeFi Mail and then the envelope next to the person you want to send a message to. Here's the FAQ entry: How does MeFiMail work?

By: pb

pb — Sat, 10 Nov 2007 08:31:40 -0800

You win this round, cortex.

By: cortex

cortex — Sat, 10 Nov 2007 08:47:20 -0800

Hey, my car started!

By: nax

nax — Sat, 10 Nov 2007 12:23:13 -0800

Thank you.