Comments on: Two new features, feeds and more feeds

Two new features, feeds and more feeds

mathowie — Tue, 17 Jun 2008 13:18:54 -0800

Two new features: resolved question sidebar (and feed) and RSS feeds for the Popular favorites page. All is explained within.

We've noticed and sort of helped push the ad-hoc use of the "resolved" tag to Ask MeFi posts where you tried out the advice and it worked or you figured out the name of the book you were looking for. Recently, we mods have taken it upon ourselves to scope out old threads that were getting updates and applying the tag wherever we could. It's always nice to know people solved their problems but there was no easy way to highlight a 7 month old thread where someone figured out the perfect solution. So we added a sidebar on the "answered" tab of Ask MeFi, ordered by how recently the resolved tag was added to them. There's also a feed if you really like closure and want to see new ones added automatically. We hope people continue to use the tag to mark off their questions when they're done and have posted updates late in the thread. The other new feature is a feed for popular posts (RSS) and popular comments (RSS) across all MeFi sites. Before today, you would have to glance at the page to keep up, but now you can add the feeds to your RSS reader of choice (it works great in Google Reader) and you'll see 2-3 new posts or comments in each feed per day. I've been following both feeds for about a week and they're great -- the posts feed is mostly Ask MeFi and it's definitely the best of the best, the comments feed is half jokey quips and half super useful comments from mefi or ask mefi where someone explains the hell out of something.

By: allkindsoftime

allkindsoftime — Tue, 17 Jun 2008 13:28:54 -0800

This is awesome and as such I approve of it.

By: Mister_A

Mister_A — Tue, 17 Jun 2008 13:35:32 -0800

Very cool! So if I tag some of my old questions "resolved", they will go into the "answered" thinger? Is there a time limit on how old a question can be resolved?

By: pb

pb — Tue, 17 Jun 2008 13:42:00 -0800

Yep, you can add the resolved tag to old questions and they'll show up in the recently resolved list. There's no time limit.

By: Brandon Blatcher

Brandon Blatcher — Tue, 17 Jun 2008 13:49:48 -0800

Best deal for $5 dollars EVER. Thanks ya'll.

By: quin

quin — Tue, 17 Jun 2008 13:53:26 -0800

I didn't see it on the AskeMe post page, but you may want to include a line about the resolved tag, so that people who don't read Metatalk are aware of it's existence and start to use it.

By: BitterOldPunk

BitterOldPunk — Tue, 17 Jun 2008 14:01:43 -0800

Excellent!

*fly hands*

By: porn in the woods

porn in the woods — Tue, 17 Jun 2008 14:24:00 -0800

Awesome! What with all these bug-free, useful updates going live and enhancing the user experience, MF is like the anti-Microsoft or something.

By: cortex

cortex — Tue, 17 Jun 2008 14:33:01 -0800

all these bug-free, useful updates

Full disclosure: there is a 3.76% chance that adding the Popular Comments feed to your reader will cause insects to swarm out of your CDROM drive.

By: Effigy2000

Effigy2000 — Tue, 17 Jun 2008 14:38:47 -0800

I like those odds.

And these features. Thanks guys!

By: Jofus

Jofus — Tue, 17 Jun 2008 14:44:47 -0800

Awesomeness!

*attempts "The Wire" handshake with everyone. fails. slopes off.*

By: Jofus

Jofus — Tue, 17 Jun 2008 14:46:34 -0800

(Just glancing at the recently resolved feed leads me to believe that it's going to see some action over the next day or so.)

By: jessamyn

jessamyn — Tue, 17 Jun 2008 14:46:50 -0800

NO HUGS NO BUGS

[I read that on a Rainbow Gathering t-shirt; I'm not totally sure it's applicable here, but I can imagine a few ways it might be...]

By: cashman

cashman — Tue, 17 Jun 2008 14:46:52 -0800

Terrorist Fist Jabs to you all!

By: SlyBevel

SlyBevel — Tue, 17 Jun 2008 14:55:09 -0800

Wow, you can add tags to closed threads. Didn't know that.

Glad I don't have a CDROM drive now.

By: gleuschk

gleuschk — Tue, 17 Jun 2008 15:05:32 -0800

Oh for chrissakes. Pretty soon this place will be completely freaking perfect and I'll have nothing to mutter grumpily under my breath about.

I guess I could mutter about the lack of grumpy-making lacks around here. Sure, sounds good. Hugs!

By: porn in the woods

porn in the woods — Tue, 17 Jun 2008 15:08:57 -0800

I spoke too soon. Bug report! The advances at MF have somehow b0rked my wireless settings, and now I feel like it's Santa Fe (but for real) here in my apartment. Energy is radiating from every surface. Shut it down, bruno - it's back to LYNX and usenet for me.
On the plus side, I can ping my cats.

By: blue_beetle

blue_beetle — Tue, 17 Jun 2008 15:10:52 -0800

* jazz hands *

By: Effigy2000

Effigy2000 — Tue, 17 Jun 2008 15:20:00 -0800

"On the plus side, I can ping my cats."
posted by porn in the woods at 9:08 AM on June 18

Is that what the kids are calling it these days?

By: jonmc

jonmc — Tue, 17 Jun 2008 15:21:57 -0800

* jazz hands *

*bluegrass feet*
*rock and roll knees*
*polka penis*
*easy listening gallbladder*

By: cortex

cortex — Tue, 17 Jun 2008 15:24:36 -0800

*hip hop scapula*
*baroque bile duct*
*crunk junk*

By: jonmc

jonmc — Tue, 17 Jun 2008 15:28:40 -0800

*deathmetal toenails*
*jug band ears*
*tejano testicles*

By: cortex

cortex — Tue, 17 Jun 2008 15:36:59 -0800

*old-timey tippy toes*
*zydeco ascending colon*
*beatbox voicebox*

By: jonmc

jonmc — Tue, 17 Jun 2008 15:41:23 -0800

*bossa nova rectum*
*soul kidneys*
*straight edge foreskin*

By: cortex

cortex — Tue, 17 Jun 2008 15:47:01 -0800

*soft rock liver*
*rhumba wrist*
*country 'roids*

By: jonmc

jonmc — Tue, 17 Jun 2008 15:49:20 -0800

*honytonk duodenum*
*latin liver*
*disco sinus cavities*

By: cortex

cortex — Tue, 17 Jun 2008 15:51:03 -0800

*spoken word pancreas*
*gypsy orbits*
*lounge tongue*

By: jonmc

jonmc — Tue, 17 Jun 2008 15:53:01 -0800

*thrash adrenals*
*punk patella*
*opera tonsils*

By: cortex

cortex — Tue, 17 Jun 2008 15:57:08 -0800

*tango tibula*
*chamber music ear canal*
*emo veins*

By: jonmc

jonmc — Tue, 17 Jun 2008 15:58:11 -0800

*tango clavicle*
*americana elbow*
*hairmetal dandruff*

By: jonmc

jonmc — Tue, 17 Jun 2008 15:58:32 -0800

*flamenco clavicle*, dammit!

By: ardgedee

ardgedee — Tue, 17 Jun 2008 15:58:39 -0800

*new wave hair*
*rockabilly hip*
*funky butt*

By: cortex

cortex — Tue, 17 Jun 2008 15:59:39 -0800

*hymn hyman*
*shuffle muscle*
*organ music organ*

By: jonmc

jonmc — Tue, 17 Jun 2008 16:01:05 -0800

*blues gums*
*bebop vertebra*
*brass band buttocks*

By: Jofus

Jofus — Tue, 17 Jun 2008 16:21:37 -0800

8 Bar Hymen Solo

By: jonmc

jonmc — Tue, 17 Jun 2008 16:24:15 -0800

*12-bar blues balls*

By: cortex

cortex — Tue, 17 Jun 2008 16:24:48 -0800

*a capella solar plexus*

By: jonmc

jonmc — Tue, 17 Jun 2008 16:26:15 -0800

*folk face*

By: pb

pb — Tue, 17 Jun 2008 16:27:41 -0800

*adult contemporary clavicles*
*mashup mandible*
*folk face*

By: pb

pb — Tue, 17 Jun 2008 16:28:12 -0800

damn, beaten to *folk face*

By: jonmc

jonmc — Tue, 17 Jun 2008 16:29:59 -0800

*fusion toes*
*gangsta ganglia*
*grunge membrane*

By: jonmc

jonmc — Tue, 17 Jun 2008 16:32:08 -0800

*power pop eyes*

By: cortex

cortex — Tue, 17 Jun 2008 16:32:58 -0800

I think Pete Seeger and Arlo Guthrie should get together and do a prank-based show where they pull tricks on people and then when they're done with whatever the trick is they jump out with a banjo and a guitar respectively and yell YOU JUST GOT FOLK FACED and then they play some stirring American folk music.

By: jonmc

jonmc — Tue, 17 Jun 2008 16:35:15 -0800

YOU JUST GOT FOLK FACED

I thought that folk-faced was what you call it when Holly Near and Arlo got drunk together.

By: jonmc

jonmc — Tue, 17 Jun 2008 16:51:53 -0800

*R&B DNA*

By: carsonb

carsonb — Tue, 17 Jun 2008 16:57:52 -0800

Well, this went plaid awful fast. Thanks for the features! *shoegaze toejam*

By: jonmc

jonmc — Tue, 17 Jun 2008 16:59:49 -0800

*klezmer tuchus*

By: ersatz

ersatz — Tue, 17 Jun 2008 17:05:31 -0800

And the Musical Anatomy Excellence Award jointly goes to... jonmc and cortex! Smile for the cams, please. *singer-songwriter smiles* or whatever you call them.

By: fire&wings

fire&wings — Tue, 17 Jun 2008 17:15:36 -0800

I suggested this about two years ago. Ask Metafilter, as an archive, is a bunch of pretty useless conjecture without some sort of follow up function from the OP.

By: fantabulous timewaster

fantabulous timewaster — Tue, 17 Jun 2008 17:51:01 -0800

cortex, I added popular comments to my RSS reader 100 times and not once did insects swarm from my CD-ROM drive. I am prepared to say with 90% confidence that your estimated probability is not correct!

By: cortex

cortex — Tue, 17 Jun 2008 17:54:04 -0800

I'm gonna need some quartiles or something.

By: wheelieman

wheelieman — Tue, 17 Jun 2008 18:08:29 -0800

So using jazz hands at the next meetup somehow.

By: Dizzy

Dizzy — Tue, 17 Jun 2008 19:02:55 -0800

I'm doing jazz hands as I typ

By: shothotbot

shothotbot — Tue, 17 Jun 2008 19:36:35 -0800

What about adding a "Mark Question Resolved" button when we look at our old ask-mes?

By: sambosambo

sambosambo — Wed, 18 Jun 2008 01:58:05 -0800

I subscribed to the popular posts and comments feeds and it's great. I was worried that there would be too many posts to read through, but the threshold for favorited posts is pretty high, so it works out really well. Way to go team!

By: stagewhisper

stagewhisper — Wed, 18 Jun 2008 10:14:59 -0800

I know this is a little more complicated, but what about allowing the original asker to submit text at the end of closed resolved questions that clarifies what solution worked? For example, I asked a question about sourcing herbal cigarettes for use on stage in NYC and nobody was able to provide an answer. Since then I've located two sources on my own. In cases like this, and also in cases where more than one option was marked as "best", wouldn't it be helpful for the final solution to be made explicit?
Regardless, this new tag is awesome. Thanks!

By: cortex

cortex — Wed, 18 Jun 2008 10:23:33 -0800

You can do that right now, and people do. Just leave a follow-up comment in your own thread. The only catch there is the eventual closure of the thread, but at a year out at this point it's not something that's likely to catch too many people.

By: stagewhisper

stagewhisper — Wed, 18 Jun 2008 10:49:51 -0800

ahh, yes. Was it a year then? It was. Sorry! I should have updated the question with what I eventually found. Time flies.

By: whir

whir — Wed, 18 Jun 2008 12:15:06 -0800

*sass foot*
*humpity-knee*
*hobbledy-leg*

By: eritain

eritain — Wed, 18 Jun 2008 12:21:47 -0800

I added popular comments to my RSS reader 100 times
posted by fantabulous timewaster

Eponys...

Aw, screw it. There oughta be a rule against one that easy.

By: chrisamiller

chrisamiller — Wed, 18 Jun 2008 12:53:45 -0800

Can we add a filter for 'resolved' to the profile pages? As of right now, my most commonly used tag is 'resolved', which doesn't strike me as a particularly useful data point.

By: pb

pb — Wed, 18 Jun 2008 13:10:35 -0800

Good point, resolved won't show up on the list of frequently used tags anymore.

By: Civil_Disobedient

Civil_Disobedient — Thu, 19 Jun 2008 04:37:28 -0800

All you need to do now is provide a mechanism to visually remove the posts from a user's AskMe page when it has been tagged as resolved--less noise for those looking to help out. Only took Matt two years to see the light of reason on this one.