Can I post something I tested to Projects?

July 1, 2008 3:44 AM

A friend developed a new Firefox extension. While I didn't write any code for it, I was one of the testers during development and like to think that my input has helped the product. Is this okay to post to Projects?
posted by grouse to etiquette/policy at 3:44 AM (47 comments total)

No. Buy him an account.
posted by Meatbomb at 4:33 AM on July 1

I don't know, have you already asked a moderator?

And, uh, if so, uh, did you check your spam folder? Sometimes emails can...yeah.
posted by 2or3whiskeysodas at 4:34 AM on July 1

My feeling is that's moving a bit far afield from authorship to really fit for Projects. Matt and Jess might disagree, but I feel like once you get to the point of needing to describe why despite you not being the author, etc, it's probably better not to, yeah.
posted by cortex at 5:11 AM on July 1

Oh, that's too bad. I guess I will post it to MetaChat for people who are interested.
posted by grouse at 6:16 AM on July 1

quit teasing us and post it already.
posted by trueluk at 6:20 AM on July 1

I did, I did.
posted by grouse at 6:29 AM on July 1

No. Buy him an account.

Seconded. Matt ain't running no charity here. Make 'em cough up his five bucks.
posted by three blind mice at 6:32 AM on July 1

SPOILER:
















The friend was not female.
posted by tellurian at 6:56 AM on July 1 [2 favorites]

No. Buy him an account.
posted by jessamyn at 7:14 AM on July 1

Well, it is on the front page now.
posted by k8t at 7:22 AM on July 1

I saw it on Metachat and thought it was really cool, so I've posted it to the front page now. Hope that keeps everyone happy. I have no connection to the project.
posted by matthewr at 7:22 AM on July 1

Happy ending!
posted by ThePinkSuperhero at 7:37 AM on July 1

Actually, it looks from the discussion that the real happy ending is the confirmation of the tenet that you shouldn't post your friends' stuff to MetaFilter because you might not be completely objective about whether it's good enough (or ready enough) to post.
posted by yhbc at 7:57 AM on July 1

Except that the blue has a much higher quality standard than Projects, so it's getting pilloried.
posted by smackfu at 7:57 AM on July 1

My right nostril flare a little itchy. Should I dare a light scratch with my pinky?
posted by Burhanistan at 7:58 AM on July 1

Of course not. Use the letter opener for that.
posted by yhbc at 8:01 AM on July 1

Oh well, not an entirely happy ending. I still think it's cool.
posted by matthewr at 8:04 AM on July 1

Here's the happy ending:
Sharks with frikkin' laser beams
posted by cowbellemoo at 8:06 AM on July 1 [1 favorite]

What's all this talk about massage parlors?
posted by Burhanistan at 8:09 AM on July 1

Of course not. Use the letter opener for that.

Are you crazy? That's about the most dangerous thing I've heard all day. You have no idea where that letter opener has been, and you could catch all manner of infection.

Use this ice pick instead.
posted by quin at 8:16 AM on July 1

I saw it on Metachat and thought it was really cool, so I've posted it to the front page now. Hope that keeps everyone happy. I have no connection to the project.

Once again Matthowie gets cheated out of his gas money.
posted by three blind mice at 8:34 AM on July 1

Use this ice pick instead.
Ice pick. Pheh. Y'all are in sillyville. Something wrong with your car keys, Burhanistan?
posted by dirtdirt at 8:36 AM on July 1

Update: I ended up going for it with a deft combination of my left index and middle fingers. Itchy nerve trigger area has been reduced by 85%, but there may be chance of exacerbation as the day progresses. Bits of encrusted dust and mucus within the nostril itself are forecast later in the afternoon, at which point previous suggestions of various solution implements will be revisted.
posted by Burhanistan at 8:47 AM on July 1

What?! Don't you know you shouldn't put anything smaller than your elbow in your nose?

And that you should put your elbow in your nose at every possible opportunity?
posted by Dipsomaniac at 8:54 AM on July 1

Are you crazy? That's about the most dangerous thing I've heard all day. You have no idea where that letter opener has been, and you could catch all manner of infection.

Use this ice pick instead.

This is exactly why sensitive issues like this should never be brought to MetaFilter. People say all kinds of crap with an air of authority, and who knows what kind of damage results if posters take them seriously.

What you need for the task is a flamethrower.
posted by languagehat at 10:00 AM on July 1

And if you don't have a flamethrower, you can easily construct one out of an aerosol can and a lighter. For best results, wrap the affected area in gasoline-soaked rags before igniting.

This device can also be used for declawing cats.
posted by BitterOldPunk at 10:05 AM on July 1 [1 favorite]

Nostril pruritis indicates a diagnosis of Face AIDS. This should be treated with 50 mg daily of Bucketocox (generic for Piladix) administered by mouth.
posted by Ambrosia Voyeur at 11:03 AM on July 1 [1 favorite]

Yay! Two separate threads about the same not-quite-ready-yet Firefox extension! Thanks, MetaFilter!

Also, on the topic of nasal itch: If you had a brain in your head, you'd know straight away that the common sense home remedy is to dunk the affected head in an Igloo cooler full of liquid nitrogen for two to three weeks; remove the head first from the cooler and then from the neck, before ever-so-gingerly smashing the bejeezus out of the headcicle with a sledgehammer. Works every time!
posted by Sys Rq at 11:34 AM on July 1

that the common sense home remedy is to dunk the affected head in an Igloo cooler full of liquid nitrogen for two to three weeks; remove the head first from the cooler and then from the neck, before ever-so-gingerly smashing the bejeezus out of the headcicle with a sledgehammer. Works every time!

That's true, of course, but it requires an amount of preparation that the suddenly itchy often don't feel they have time for. And everybody has a household flamethrower.
posted by languagehat at 11:39 AM on July 1

And in Washington DC, it's now legal to keep loaded hand-flamethrowers in your home!
posted by blue_beetle at 12:03 PM on July 1

Wait, now I'm confused: it's not okay to self-link on the blue, but it is okay to buy a $5 membership for the sole purpose of posting something you did to projects? Seems like a heck of a loophole for these SEO types...
posted by davejay at 1:18 PM on July 1

Matt (as the person who usually approves Projects submissions) reserves the right to not approve skeezy looking bullshit submissions from opportunistic SEO types.

Projects, and Music and Jobs in the same general sense, make for kind of interesting edge-cases in that sense. We've rejected Projects before, and deleted Jobs posts (no queue there, unlike Projects), and on a couple of occasions I've deleted posts (or arranged a significant edit) from a new Music poster who seemed to have mistaken the Music subsite for a unmoderated ad space. We see these edge-cases and sort of adjust our thinking on what flies and how to deal with it as we go.

In general, if someone wants to sign up and post some fairly cool thing to Projects right away, that's been okay. If all they do after that is hang around waiting until they can post another Project, and another, and they show no interest in the site, that's not gonna fly so much.
posted by cortex at 1:27 PM on July 1 [1 favorite]

Acronyms are an amazing part of language. I have no idea what 'SEO' stands for, but that has never stopped me from following conversations about spammers.

I'm sure the same thing goes for tons of people w/r/t DVD, HTML, ATM, etc.
posted by shakespeherian at 1:39 PM on July 1

Matt (as the person who usually approves Projects submissions) reserves the right to not approve skeezy looking bullshit submissions from opportunistic SEO types.

Thanks for the clarity, cortex -- I wasn't aware there was a queue.
posted by davejay at 2:09 PM on July 1

Here's how it works actually, for future reference

_We see and approve each one before they go live_
Projects
AnonyMe questions

_We see after-the-fact email about_
first post to MeFi by any user
AskMe that seems to be by a sock puppet of someone who already asked a question this week
MeTa posts (actually I think we may see them like five minutes before they go live)

_We see on the site, same as you_
everything else

I'm not sure if I'm missing anything, this seems pretty complete.
posted by jessamyn at 2:15 PM on July 1 [1 favorite]

We see dead people?
posted by Burhanistan at 2:20 PM on July 1

Man, after reading that I just went to look for this great subsection I'd never heard of before called "AnnoyMe", because I had a hell of a great question to submit. Imagine my disappointment.
posted by yhbc at 2:22 PM on July 1

MeTa posts (actually I think we may see them like five minutes before they go live)

Do we? I thought it was just the timeout on the front-page cache that made it seem that way to users.
posted by cortex at 2:23 PM on July 1

I thought it was just the timeout on the front-page cache that made it seem that way to users.

Well if it seems like it looks that way, it sort of is that way, no? Basically we get a direct link to the MeTa post before anyone else sees it though technically yeah it's up and live on the site.
posted by jessamyn at 2:36 PM on July 1

Well, it's effectively like a zero-to-five minute window, is what I'm thinking. If the Metatalk front page cache refreshes every five minutes on the 0s and 5s, and someone makes a post at 10:04:45, the timeout is all of fifteen seconds.

Is what I'm thinking. We could probably just ask pb.
posted by cortex at 2:42 PM on July 1

we may see them like up to five minutes before they go live

FTFM!
posted by jessamyn at 2:46 PM on July 1

jessamynAdmin: "
_We see after-the-fact email about_

AskMe that seems to be by a sock puppet of someone who already asked a question this week."

That sounds pretty cool, how does that work?
posted by Science! at 3:48 PM on July 1

It compares identifying details on a just-made post to all the accounts in the database, and checks matches for recent askme-post activity.

Sometimes, it's two people who know each other. Coolio, as you were.

Sometimes, it's someone with two accounts, and we tell them to cut it out.
posted by cortex at 3:56 PM on July 1

(That is, identifying details in the poster's account—email, paypal, etc.)
posted by cortex at 3:57 PM on July 1

and the worst thing about all this is that the said extension is quite worthless. The video says something like "it uses smart technology to automatically summarize reviews" but it only works on a small subset of Amazon products. It almost feels like it's not automated -- like some human has to summarize it for each product.
posted by special-k at 4:14 PM on July 1

I really liked the idea of this plug-in, but posting it so early in its development is a disservice to the work the guy who wrote it has done on it, like taking a loaf of bread out of the oven too soon.

And now, assuming it isn't a hand-coded hoax, and the plug-in actually does extract review summaries, by posting it so prematurely, you've effectively crippled its chances of getting featured when it will be at its best, and when people would actually install it and use it.

As opposed to what I did -- install it, find it was useless, and then uninstall it. When it finally works right, the eventual, more timely post will now be deleted as a double.

But this does give me a good idea -- 1. Write a half-baked Firefox plug-in that pretends to do something really useful on Amazon but that in reality surreptitiously appends Amazon links with ones that have my associate ID in them. 2. Get some knucklehead to flog it for me in Projects/Metatalk/Metafilter. 3. PROFIT!
posted by Dave Faris at 6:47 PM on July 1

Get some knucklehead to flog it for me in Projects/Metatalk/Metafilter.

Awww, I love you too, Dave.
posted by grouse at 11:56 PM on July 1