Comments on: Wishing for a BBS

Wishing for a BBS

five fresh fish — Sun, 27 Jan 2008 13:22:51 -0800

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.

By: mathowie

mathowie — Sun, 27 Jan 2008 13:32:08 -0800

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).

By: grouse

grouse — Sun, 27 Jan 2008 14:28:00 -0800

That sounds like it will be awesome.

By: Phire

Phire — Sun, 27 Jan 2008 15:00:47 -0800

Dude! We get a modded pony!! Kick ass!!!

By: Phire

Phire — Sun, 27 Jan 2008 15:00:59 -0800

Also: hug.

By: cillit bang

cillit bang — Sun, 27 Jan 2008 15:07:26 -0800

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.

By: five fresh fish

five fresh fish — Sun, 27 Jan 2008 15:17:57 -0800

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?

By: five fresh fish

five fresh fish — Sun, 27 Jan 2008 15:20:40 -0800

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.

By: five fresh fish

five fresh fish — Sun, 27 Jan 2008 15:32:55 -0800

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?

By: grouse

grouse — Sun, 27 Jan 2008 15:36:16 -0800

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.

By: cortex

cortex — Sun, 27 Jan 2008 15:44:06 -0800

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.

By: stavrosthewonderchicken

stavrosthewonderchicken — Sun, 27 Jan 2008 15:59:23 -0800

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.

By: languagehat

languagehat — Sun, 27 Jan 2008 16:06:43 -0800

What cortex and stavros said.

By: Phire

Phire — Sun, 27 Jan 2008 16:10:47 -0800

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.

By: Brandon Blatcher

Brandon Blatcher — Sun, 27 Jan 2008 16:22:53 -0800

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.

By: brain_drain

brain_drain — Sun, 27 Jan 2008 17:53:24 -0800

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.

By: five fresh fish

five fresh fish — Sun, 27 Jan 2008 18:02:43 -0800

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.

By: Skorgu

Skorgu — Sun, 27 Jan 2008 18:02:47 -0800

Show of hands, who saw "Pony" and parsed the title as "Big Beautiful Stallion?"

By: empath

empath — Sun, 27 Jan 2008 18:07:40 -0800

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.

By: CKmtl

CKmtl — Sun, 27 Jan 2008 18:18:11 -0800

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."

By: dersins

dersins — Sun, 27 Jan 2008 18:54:07 -0800

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??

By: Alvy Ampersand

Alvy Ampersand — Sun, 27 Jan 2008 19:04:21 -0800

Fourthing languagehat.

By: desuetude

desuetude — Sun, 27 Jan 2008 19:10:00 -0800

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.)

By: five fresh fish

five fresh fish — Sun, 27 Jan 2008 20:10:27 -0800

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.

By: MetaMonkey

MetaMonkey — Sun, 27 Jan 2008 21:11:47 -0800

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

Huzzah!

By: mathowie

mathowie — Mon, 28 Jan 2008 16:54:08 -0800

pb added it just now. Try out your new tab.

By: grouse

grouse — Mon, 28 Jan 2008 16:58:19 -0800

OMG

By: five fresh fish

five fresh fish — Mon, 28 Jan 2008 18:31:21 -0800

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

Thanks, Matt.

By: MetaMonkey

MetaMonkey — Tue, 29 Jan 2008 05:34:20 -0800

It's everything I ever dreamed it could be. A thousand thankyous.

By: chrismear

chrismear — Tue, 29 Jan 2008 08:42:31 -0800

I kiss you.