Watching old askme posts April 20, 2008 9:05 PM   Subscribe

Is there a way to see what old ask threads have recent activity on them?

I don't want to subscribe to RSS feeds, because I'm not asking about questions I have asked. I just would like a way to see what's active and also off the front page. Is that possible? If it is, I'm not finding it (or a prior question relating to it).
posted by dpx.mfx to Feature Requests at 9:05 PM (15 comments total)

There's no feature in place for this right now. Something in the future might be possible, but we don't have any specific plan in place.

One thing you can do right now is check in on the resolved tag occasionally; users will sometimes add it when they've followed up on a question, and we'll sometimes add it ourselves if we see a late update.
posted by cortex (staff) at 9:13 PM on April 20, 2008


This would be delicious. I sometimes feel like I could give good answers to old askme's but don't due to a significant amount of time having passed.
posted by andythebean at 10:06 PM on April 20, 2008


I sometimes feel like I could give good answers to old askme's but don't due to a significant amount of time having passed.

Why? A lot of the people who participated in the thread are probably still watching it, at least.
posted by grouse at 12:09 AM on April 21, 2008


Grouse, I'm mostly referring to subjective 'What should I do with X aspect of my personal life?' questions. Any specific 'Can you help me find product/book/photo X?' questions that I have come up with good answers to, I mefi mail the OP.
posted by andythebean at 1:53 AM on April 21, 2008


I don't see the difference, sorry. A good proportion of the people who participated in the original thread are still going to be watching for new comments via Recent Activity. Not to mention people who find it later just as you did.
posted by grouse at 1:56 AM on April 21, 2008


AskMe has a surprisingly long tail. Every now and again I am pleasantly shocked when some ancient comment of mine turns up under Recent Favorites.
posted by flabdablet at 4:07 AM on April 21, 2008


Along this line, a "view by most recent reply" option would be a good way to go.
posted by Thorzdad at 5:55 AM on April 21, 2008


Heaven forbid you miss gems like this.
posted by popechunk at 6:07 AM on April 21, 2008


popechunk, do you have any reason to think that isn't the correct answer?
posted by grouse at 6:24 AM on April 21, 2008


There's also the recent comments tabs, but not for AskMe: MeTa, MeFi.

cortex: Is that what you are referring to?
posted by philomathoholic at 7:48 AM on April 21, 2008


No, I'm thinking more about a theoretical Hey, There's A Comment In This Month+ Old Thread view or tab or whatever. It's something we've built into the admin interface as a spam-tracking tool (join the site and post a link to the website in your profile to two or three askme threads from half a year ago? Hello there!), but aside from spam it turns up those late updates as well. Finding a way to make that work cleanly for general viewing is a little more of a question though.

I'm actually not sure why we've got Recent Comments on the blue and the grey but not the green, though. Might just be an oversight.
posted by cortex (staff) at 8:06 AM on April 21, 2008


I sometimes feel like I could give good answers to old askme's but don't due to a significant amount of time having passed.
I didn't get a tick or any response to Tragic notepad [that should have been 'boarder'] (1 month) or Wordy Rappinghood (1 year), but it gave me closure. So, go ahead, create some activity anyway.
posted by tellurian at 8:36 AM on April 21, 2008


popechunk, do you have any reason to think that isn't the correct answer?

I don't know what the answer is. I suppose "nope, sucks" could very well be the answer.

I'm just surprised someone felt like resuscitating a 90 day old question for "nope, sucks".
posted by popechunk at 7:37 PM on April 21, 2008


I'm just surprised someone felt like resuscitating a 90 day old question for "nope, sucks".
--popechunk

And now, it's no longer in the "Unanswered" tab, which sucks.
posted by philomathoholic at 10:19 PM on April 21, 2008


But it's answered! And it leaves room for questions that really haven't been answered.
posted by grouse at 1:38 AM on April 22, 2008


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