Wishing for a BBS

January 27, 2008 1:22 PM

Dumb question: does this "remove from activity" link I'm seeing on MyComments do what I think it does?

And is there a corresponding "add to activity" link that will do what I want it to do? Maybe it's that little "+" sign I see at the end of the FPP?

Or do I still have to resort to posting irrelevent chatter so that the FPP enters my MyComments page?

I'm guessing the latter.

Pony Request: The ability to add an FPP thread to a MyFi page. All we need is a way to read a thread without having to contribute noise to it, and we kick the whole game up a notch. Self-filtered MeFi.

If I could get a page where the order were "(new fpps + watched fpps + participated-in fpps - removed fpps):date order" displayed in MeFi home format (title, body, name, date, message count, number since last viewed)... wow, that'd be heavenly.

"watched fpps" might be My Favourites, and "participated-in fpps" is My Comments. It might be the functionality is already in place, it's that the presentation isn't.

posted by five fresh fish to feature requests at 1:22 PM (29 comments total)

This request has come up several times, and I've explained that I won't be doing it as a new widget on posts because it's too confusing to explain the difference between "add to favorites" and "add to Recent Activity".

Instead, we'll be adding a tab to the Recent Activity page that shows recent comments on posts you have added as a favorite. So that way, we don't get user confusion and we don't have to code any new widgets beyond the display page (which will say My Favorites like the My Posts and My Comments tabs).
posted by mathowie at 1:32 PM on January 27, 2008 [3 favorites has favorites]

That sounds like it will be awesome.
posted by grouse at 2:28 PM on January 27, 2008

Dude! We get a modded pony!! Kick ass!!!
posted by Phire at 3:00 PM on January 27, 2008

Also: hug.
posted by Phire at 3:00 PM on January 27, 2008

Could we have a unified status page at some point? Between the 7 frontpages, the sidebar, the meetups sidebar, the contact activity sidebar, the activity on my posts page, the activity on threads I've commented in page and now the activity on favorited threads page, not to mention various other subpages, it's getting awful hard to keep up with MeFi.
posted by cillit bang at 3:07 PM on January 27, 2008

Consolidating new-to-me FPPs, FPPs in which I'm lurking, and FPPs in which I'm participating would be so much easier for us all, though. Why should we have to go to three separate pages for our fix of the Blue? How does that improve things?
posted by five fresh fish at 3:17 PM on January 27, 2008

However, I strongly advise against consolidating different colours of FPP. It's essential to AskMe that it remain a distinct community. Consolidating colours would make it much too easy for end-users to confuse the social spheres: coming out of a heated MeTa row and into an AskMe question that's poorly-worded would not be a happy thing.
posted by five fresh fish at 3:20 PM on January 27, 2008

Why do we have an "Add Favourite" command for FPPs anyway? I completely fail to see how that's a useful function. At what time in the future am I going to want to go back and re-read a favourited thread? It's going to be inactive within a week and utterly closed after a month: what purpose does it serve, sitting there in my My Favourites list? To let other people know what I like? But isn't that self-evident by my participation in threads?
posted by five fresh fish at 3:32 PM on January 27, 2008

Why do we have an "Add Favourite" command for FPPs anyway? I completely fail to see how that's a useful function.

If you think they aren't useful for any other reason, then it's a perfect feature to co-opt for a user-definable watchlist.
posted by grouse at 3:36 PM on January 27, 2008

I completely fail to see how that's a useful function. At what time in the future am I going to want to go back and re-read a favourited thread?

I do this. I favorite things specifically to keep them around for the rainy day when I want to dig into something that I don't have time to read up on when I see the post.
posted by cortex at 3:44 PM on January 27, 2008 [1 favorite has favorites]

I completely fail to see how that's a useful function. At what time in the future am I going to want to go back and re-read a favourited thread?

That's kind of a bizarre question. I don't know what you personally might or might not want to do.

Different people use favorites for different things. Although a great many folks seem to be gravitating towards using it as a pat on the back or a [this is good] (which leads to some disconcerting-to-me herd behaviour and favemobbing), it makes perfectly good sense and (I reckon) is actually a much more useful function when posts themselves can be favorited, in which situation it makes sense as an internal bookmarking facility as much as it does a [this is good] function.

I've broken down in recent times and started using the system both ways, but because a lot of what I've +faved has been things that I would like to be able to revisit, I'm still very much hoping for more functionality aimed at browsing, organizing and searching one's own favorites history.
posted by stavrosthewonderchicken at 3:59 PM on January 27, 2008 [1 favorite has favorites]

What cortex and stavros said.
posted by languagehat at 4:06 PM on January 27, 2008

I completely fail to see how that's a useful function. At what time in the future am I going to want to go back and re-read a favourited thread?

I dunno, I do this quite a bit. The Mr. Rogers thread is one, the Life-Altering Experiences one is another. Some things are better second - or third, or fourth - time 'round.
posted by Phire at 4:10 PM on January 27, 2008 [1 favorite has favorites]

I favorite things specifically to keep them around for the rainy day when I want to dig into something that I don't have time to read up on when I see the post.

yeah, me too. it's great fun to go back through favorited stuff and catch up with stuff you missed.
posted by Brandon Blatcher at 4:22 PM on January 27, 2008 [1 favorite has favorites]

Or do I still have to resort to posting irrelevent chatter so that the FPP enters my MyComments page? I'm guessing the latter.

Do you actually do this? If so, that's pretty lame. If it's just a rhetorical question, I get your point.
posted by brain_drain at 5:53 PM on January 27, 2008

Wow. I can't imagine there being so little going on in the contents of the front page that I'd have time to go read a thread that's weeks old.

Okay, so perhaps what I want is already there, it's just not in forms that I recognize.

Here are the things I need to do:

- see what's new in the way of FPPs. To do that, I visit the MeFi home page.

- see what's new in the way of posts made to threads I've posted to. To do that I can go to /home/mycomments. I can also go to /contribute/activity/mycomments. The former gives me a MeFi homepage-style listing; the latter lists the most recent 10 comments.

- see what's new in threads I've not posted to, but would like to watch. To do that I can go to...????

It's that last one that eludes me.
posted by five fresh fish at 6:02 PM on January 27, 2008

Show of hands, who saw "Pony" and parsed the title as "Big Beautiful Stallion?"
posted by Skorgu at 6:02 PM on January 27, 2008

I would like a single activity across the subsites with:

Threads I've commented on, threads I've favorited with new comments, and new activity from contacts all on the same page.

Even better, I'd like some way to filter the activity page and be able to hide any thread from that view.

(an example)

Show: [x]Metafilter [x]Metatalk [x]Ask Metafilter (etc)
Show: [x]Threads I've commented in [x]Threads I've Favorited [x]Contact Activity


Also, I'd like a pony.
posted by empath at 6:07 PM on January 27, 2008

see what's new in threads I've not posted to, but would like to watch. To do that I can go to...????

RSS. Or bookmark it in your browser and refresh.

Or, as matt just said "... a tab to the Recent Activity page that shows recent comments on posts you have added as a favorite."
posted by CKmtl at 6:18 PM on January 27, 2008

see what's new in threads I've not posted to, but would like to watch. To do that I can go to...

The list of threads which you've favorited, which includes that thread??
posted by dersins at 6:54 PM on January 27, 2008

Fourthing languagehat.
posted by Alvy Ampersand at 7:04 PM on January 27, 2008

Wow. I can't imagine there being so little going on in the contents of the front page that I'd have time to go read a thread that's weeks old.

It's usually the link, not the thread, that I'm saving for a rainy day or reminding myself to read when I get home. You know, best of the web? That metafiltering thing? (But then again, I can't imagine having time to fully read everything of interest in the blue as it scrolls by.)
posted by desuetude at 7:10 PM on January 27, 2008

The list of threads which you've favorited, which includes that thread??

Does that give me an "x new comments" link, so that I can leap directly to the first new comment since I last viewed the thread?

'cause if so, it'd probably suffice, even if it a PITA way of getting things done.
posted by five fresh fish at 8:10 PM on January 27, 2008

we'll be adding a tab to the Recent Activity page that shows recent comments on posts you have added as a favorite

Huzzah!
posted by MetaMonkey at 9:11 PM on January 27, 2008

pb added it just now. Try out your new tab.
posted by mathowie at 4:54 PM on January 28, 2008 [1 favorite has favorites]

OMG
posted by grouse at 4:58 PM on January 28, 2008

Oh-ho. Now to go favourite me some interesting threads...

Thanks, Matt.
posted by five fresh fish at 6:31 PM on January 28, 2008

It's everything I ever dreamed it could be. A thousand thankyous.
posted by MetaMonkey at 5:34 AM on January 29, 2008

I kiss you.
posted by chrismear at 8:42 AM on January 29, 2008