Give me disorder! In reverse descending order! June 23, 2008 2:11 PM   Subscribe

PONY: I like discussion! How about having some way of pulling up the "most active" threads...threads which have the most comments over the past x hours.

Yeah, I realize I can manually scan the page and compare the number of comments, but having a computer do this for me would be cool.

Actually, really I want "Most argumentative" discussions (heated debate is cool--[NOT DIALOGUEIST]). I figure that threads where people make a lot of multiple posts would be a good metric.
posted by Deathalicious to Feature Requests at 2:11 PM (74 comments total)

That would be great. I've wanted that feature from when I started visiting mefi.
posted by jouke at 2:18 PM on June 23, 2008


"recent comments" accomplishes this pretty nicely, and it has the added advantage of alerting you to new flurries of comments (or a single update) in a thread you might overwise have thought was over.
posted by yhbc at 2:22 PM on June 23, 2008


*drops pizza and runs out to the quad*

fight! fight! fight!
posted by Ambrosia Voyeur at 2:58 PM on June 23, 2008


*picks up dropped pizza in invocation of five-second rule*
posted by mdonley at 2:59 PM on June 23, 2008 [2 favorites]


GIVE ME THAT PIZZA!
posted by Artw at 3:00 PM on June 23, 2008


Is it two mods?! 'cause if it is we might see some backend stuff.
posted by Brandon Blatcher at 3:10 PM on June 23, 2008


GIVE ME THE PIZZA OR I WILL CUT YOU!
posted by Artw at 3:13 PM on June 23, 2008


I like discussion!

Oh hey, that sounds reasonable! I wonder if you can be facilitated in that endeavor!

Actually, really I want "Most argumentative" discussions

Never mind!
posted by shmegegge at 3:32 PM on June 23, 2008


I think it should be called THREADS CURRENTLY EXPLODING
posted by baphomet at 3:53 PM on June 23, 2008 [3 favorites]


I seem to be involved with all of them.
posted by Artw at 3:54 PM on June 23, 2008


recent activity and favorites work if you manage to find the thread and tag it in some way to add it to your personal history view.

The case for this that I can think of is: Very interesting and indepth discussion takes place while you are away from metafilter (for shame), it falls off the radar of the front pages, and hasn't hit momentum to show up in the sidebar, and you don't have Miko or other such awesome commenters added as contacts, so you have no way of knowing if such a great discussion is going on just below the calm tranquil surface of the blue.
posted by mrzarquon at 4:02 PM on June 23, 2008


The best is when someone comments a nanosecond after submission, implying 3.6 trillion comments/hour and the collapse of Metafilter into The Singularity of the Commentariat.
posted by lukemeister at 4:04 PM on June 23, 2008 [1 favorite]


At some point advanced posthuman AIs will have the capability to post comments complaing that the FPP shouldn't exist before the FPP has even been posted. They will remain total dicks.
posted by Artw at 4:10 PM on June 23, 2008 [3 favorites]


(or just add artw as a contact, that works fairly well also)
posted by mrzarquon at 4:11 PM on June 23, 2008 [2 favorites]


Did that recent thread about the Singularity say when the posthumans would be able to drink our milkshake?
posted by lukemeister at 4:14 PM on June 23, 2008


They will drink it backwards in time. Through a wormhole.
posted by Artw at 4:17 PM on June 23, 2008 [1 favorite]


Yeah, I mostly go to the green or the grey these days...I really only find out about sexy contentious threads through MeTa these days. How many warm fuzzy posts to I need to sift through to get to the meat?
posted by Deathalicious at 4:18 PM on June 23, 2008 [1 favorite]


This is a great idea.
posted by killdevil at 4:19 PM on June 23, 2008


Actually, really I want "Most argumentative" discussions

The traditional avenue, here, is to hang out in #bunnies on slashnet and wait for someone to go "oh SHIT [link]".
posted by cortex (staff) at 4:20 PM on June 23, 2008


This also works for #mefi except that there's a good chance the link will be turn out to be to a Rick Astley video.
posted by cortex (staff) at 4:21 PM on June 23, 2008


Or knifebutt.
posted by dersins at 4:47 PM on June 23, 2008


Or isn't that done any more? I haven't been on IRC in, what, years?
posted by dersins at 4:48 PM on June 23, 2008


We used to have this, didn't we? Posts with most number of comments?
posted by sugarfish at 5:17 PM on June 23, 2008


Has anyone said no yet?
posted by jessamyn (staff) at 5:21 PM on June 23, 2008 [1 favorite]


Man, knifebutt. That takes me back. Knifebutt is like the aging sainted grandmother of stuff-to-link-to at this point.

Also, yeah, no. There's a bunch of reasonable good existing ways to locate this stuff, not least among them giving the front page a quick scan for large numbers. Adding another extra-specific Take Me To The Drama function seems like something we should take a pass on.
posted by cortex (staff) at 5:24 PM on June 23, 2008 [1 favorite]


Large numbers is not enough, though. The Carlin thread has over 300 comments but I'm guessing it's somewhere in the neighborhood of 1 comment per person, and half of them are ".".
posted by Deathalicious at 5:31 PM on June 23, 2008


"The Carlin thread has over 300 comments but I'm guessing it's somewhere in the neighborhood of 1 comment per person, and half of them are '.'."

I must be the other half then, cuz that's not what I'm seeing in there.
posted by ZachsMind at 5:39 PM on June 23, 2008


The instantaneous velocity of the conversation is its tangent.
posted by unknowncommand at 8:35 PM on June 23, 2008


Um, really? I would have said the instantaneous velocity of the conversation is the gradient of its tangent.
posted by jacalata at 9:21 PM on June 23, 2008


I nearly forgot about knifebutt. He suffered a bit from hitting the shock image scene at around the same time as the much more grotesque pain3.jpg, but he had perhaps the most moxie of anyone on bmezine. I hope he's happy and well in whatever tetanus ward he calls home these days.
posted by moift at 9:25 PM on June 23, 2008 [1 favorite]


So the knifebutt, at least with that terminology, appears to be peculiar to Metafilter? I searched but did not find. (In terms of shock images, like Rutger Hauer I've seen things you people wouldn't believe, to the point that there's one I won't even speak the name of because people would Google it and hate me forever, and the textual descriptions of this knifebutt sound rather tame to me.)
posted by TheOnlyCoolTim at 10:25 PM on June 23, 2008


MeFights!


Who reads any of those "real" discussions anyway?
posted by clearly at 10:26 PM on June 23, 2008 [1 favorite]


...and while we're at it can you immortalize the winners in the sidebar?
posted by clearly at 10:27 PM on June 23, 2008 [1 favorite]


I only like to read the drama threads for the non-sequiturs (e.g.)... Is there a quick way to tell sort out which threads are rich in wacky nonsense and which are just sincere boneheads yelling at each other?
posted by sleevener at 10:36 PM on June 23, 2008 [1 favorite]


*calls a cryptic command into a portable radio, gives thumbs up sign*

*watches giant 10 acre pizza fall from the sky, obliterating the entire thread*
posted by loquacious at 2:02 AM on June 24, 2008 [1 favorite]


Terrible feature. Imagine being someone with a direct relationship to the subject in a contentious thread as dozens of mefites who have been pre-filtered for not caring much about the subject (you were not attracted by the FPP) but loving conflict for its own sake (you were attracted by hearing that it went sideways) are drawn to it by the batsignal.

Meanwhile, as you're all cherrypicking tiny details out of a massive thread to entertain your easily-bored selves and marveling at how easy it is to tweak people who care about something, trolls who were bumming that the thread had probably peaked get several more perfect opportunities to fool people into responding to them, and people who kept their act together for the first two hundred posts will allow themselves to be goaded by you and act out in ways that may have never happened if the thread had experienced its natural lifespan. You, of course, will be incredibly surprised at the vitriol you receive because you won't be thinking that your jewel of an observation is the 20th random sophomoric 'insight' that person addressed. And the mods will have to moderate this thing, which runs the risk of being repeatedly re-invigorated by fresh new uninvested fighty people every time it goes to the top of the fighty threads meter.

Finding yourself in asymmetrical arguments with people who don't give a fuck is part of the package if you discuss something online, but there's no need to make a tool for it.
posted by Your Time Machine Sucks at 3:10 AM on June 24, 2008 [1 favorite]


jacalata, you're right. i was remembering it graphically.
posted by unknowncommand at 5:30 AM on June 24, 2008


Haven't you noticed that MetaTalk threads have all become just rambling chat pages?
posted by smackfu at 5:34 AM on June 24, 2008


Why don't we get some coffee and talk about it, ok?
posted by Brandon Blatcher at 6:19 AM on June 24, 2008


"Can I see the most active threads...?" Yes, sounds like a good idea. "...So that I can go straight to the pissfights?" No, doesn't sound like a good idea all of a sudden. I think you sabotaged your own pony.
posted by ardgedee at 6:27 AM on June 24, 2008


" I think you sabotaged your own pony"

I think "kneecapped" would've been a better choice of words there. Here, let me show you:

"You just kneecapped your own pony."

See? Doesn't that create a much more satisfying visual image?
posted by mr_crash_davis at 7:11 AM on June 24, 2008


* cries *
posted by baby_jessamyn at 7:28 AM on June 24, 2008


The visual image I came up with was putting metal megaman-like knee caps on a pony. Then you could just have it ram stuff. "Mommy look, a pony! Amanda wait, that pony's been kneecapped!...Run Amanda! EEEEEeeee!!" tromp Tromp Tromp TROMP TROMP - Blam!
posted by cashman at 7:30 AM on June 24, 2008 [1 favorite]


sleevener, just add jonmc to your contacts.
posted by Mister_A at 7:45 AM on June 24, 2008


Can we simul-cast our comments as a twitter stream? Then we could all be cool.
posted by blue_beetle at 11:43 AM on June 24, 2008


MetaFilter: uninvested fighty people every time.
(Rebuttals should be addressed to Your Time Machine Sucks.)
posted by Cranberry at 12:29 PM on June 24, 2008


Rebuttals bad, wacky nonsense good
posted by sleevener at 1:22 PM on June 24, 2008


Alright, fine. I went ahead and made a GreaseMonkey script here that highlights posts with 50 comments or more (the thicker the line, the more comments there are). I just want to go on record, though, that it still doesn't find contentious threads, just threads with a lot of comments.
posted by Deathalicious at 2:37 PM on June 24, 2008


Speaking about things, which we are: is it just me, or is the word "disingenuous" used way too much around here? Could we just try "insincere" once or twice, mix things up a little?
posted by turgid dahlia at 4:37 PM on June 24, 2008


Now you're just being disingen—OH MY GOD IT'S TRUE.
posted by cortex (staff) at 4:44 PM on June 24, 2008


turgid dahlia, it is my very favorite word, so no. Wait, I take that back-- it's my second favorite word. No is still #1.
posted by Tehanu at 6:12 PM on June 24, 2008 [1 favorite]


It's a good word to be sure but more often than not people are using it as an antonym for "ingenious", which it really isn't. linguisticheadgear will back me up on that. Hello, my flask is empty.
posted by turgid dahlia at 6:24 PM on June 24, 2008


You can't just invoke the powers of the textualtuque like that. If you're going to argue definitions, you're going to need to pull some text in here.
posted by Tehanu at 6:52 PM on June 24, 2008


I'm with Tehanu. That's a tall challenge; I can believe that some people have made the mistake, but hardly "more often than not". The biggest problem with 'disingenuous' is it's overzealous application, not a misunderstanding of its meaning.
posted by cortex (staff) at 6:56 PM on June 24, 2008


Huh? I always use it to mean "screw you, you lying weasel fuck" - how do other people use it?
posted by Artw at 7:12 PM on June 24, 2008 [2 favorites]


is it's overzealous application, not a misunderstanding of its meaning.

I can't believe you are teling anyone anything about anything, with spelling like that.
posted by jessamyn (staff) at 7:21 PM on June 24, 2008


Look, all's I'm saying is - can't we just all gather 'round together, and share bread and oil amongst ourselves like brothers?
posted by turgid dahlia at 7:27 PM on June 24, 2008


I'm goofing off here now and then to relieve my brain of editing. You all are not helping.
posted by Tehanu at 7:29 PM on June 24, 2008


That's not spellin', that's punctuatin'.
posted by cortex (staff) at 7:34 PM on June 24, 2008


with sloppy thinking like that you'll never get noplace.
posted by jessamyn (staff) at 7:42 PM on June 24, 2008


Hey, you guys remember those wooden toys that used to smell like cheetos? What was up with those, anyway?
posted by mds35 at 7:58 PM on June 24, 2008


Huh? I always use it to mean "screw you, you lying weasel fuck" - how do other people use it?

That's the advantage of disingenuous vs. insincere. "Disingenuous" is the way to call someone a lying weasel fuck without pissing them off. Similarly, I sometimes use "highly risk-averse" to call someone a fucking coward.

Hey, you guys remember those wooden toys that used to smell like cheetos? What was up with those, anyway?


I do not remember any such wooden toys but I find it slightly disturbing that apparently they used to smell like Cheetos but no longer possess that smell, unless they only smelled like that because you played with them while eating Cheetos, you slob.
posted by TheOnlyCoolTim at 8:52 PM on June 24, 2008


I always thought it was spelled "Cheetoes." God, this thread just makes me wronger and wronger.
posted by unknowncommand at 9:14 PM on June 24, 2008


When I want to be sly, I tell someone that I am highly not-fucking-their-mom-averse.
posted by cortex (staff) at 9:14 PM on June 24, 2008


Does that mean you-OH MY GOD YOU SICK FUCK! THAT'S MY MOM!

(Actually it's "mum", but anyways.)
posted by turgid dahlia at 9:20 PM on June 24, 2008


I always thought it was spelled "Cheetoes." God, this thread just makes me wronger and wronger.

I was curious as to how wrong you were and I found that according to the Google you are about 97.7% wrong. Dude, you'd best check yourself.
posted by TheOnlyCoolTim at 9:25 PM on June 24, 2008


Actually it's "mum"

maths
posted by cortex (staff) at 9:39 PM on June 24, 2008 [1 favorite]


Cheetos are all like ~ while Cheezles are all like o, amirite?
posted by turgid dahlia at 10:06 PM on June 24, 2008


Cheezles are all like o, amirite?

Is that australian for blow job?
posted by dersins at 10:32 PM on June 24, 2008


So the knifebutt, at least with that terminology, appears to be peculiar to Metafilter? I searched but did not find.

Knifebutt, knifebutt, knife in his ass, nobody knows where knifebutt is at.
posted by stavrogin at 4:26 AM on June 25, 2008


oops.
posted by stavrogin at 4:30 AM on June 25, 2008


That's the advantage of disingenuous vs. insincere. "Disingenuous" is the way to call someone a lying weasel fuck without pissing them off.

Exactly. And I'm afraid that, like Tehanu and gore-tex, I disagree that "more often than not people are using it as an antonym for 'ingenious.'" But I hope your flask gets filled soon.
posted by languagehat at 6:34 AM on June 25, 2008


turgid dahlia: "Cheetos are all like ~ while Cheezles are all like o, amirite?"

Shouldn't that be Cheesles?
posted by dg at 2:03 AM on June 26, 2008


Actually dg, turns out we're both wrong.
posted by turgid dahlia at 3:19 PM on June 29, 2008


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