Why "Filters" before questions?

January 23, 2009 10:41 AM

This is probably obvious, which is why I couldn't find it in the FAQ or the search. Why do people preface their questions with "[blank] filter:"? Does it help future searches and RSS filters?
posted by dicetumbler to etiquette/policy at 10:41 AM (33 comments total)

the filter prefix is like a personality fixation, only more obnoxious.
posted by dawson at 10:43 AM on January 23

It's just a tic people have, there's no real helpfulness to it besides the sort of reification of the whole filtering idea.
posted by jessamyn at 10:45 AM on January 23 [1 favorite]

I'd say it's really just 95% silly (and not exactly universally loved) convention. Someone started doing it way back in the day, others followed suit. Perhaps it came from someone recognizing that their question was on a topic that was coming up in AskMe a lot lately, and they threw FooFilter: on the front as a jokey acknowledgment of that.

(Once upon a time I started researching the spread of FooFilter in askme questions but I don't think I ever finished that. I should go back to it at some point.)

If it helps with anything, it'd be quick-scanning of the page for folks looking for something interesting to read—throwing "GardeningFilter" in front of a question that's otherwise lacking in obvious gardening-related jargon might be part of an asker's attempt to make it clear that, yes, if you like gardening then this question may interest you. Which was probably more useful before we had tags and the MyAsk stuff going on; now it's a moot point when you can follow the "gardening" tag via RSS, etc.

And again some people seem to like it and some people seem to hate it and most people probably just shrug and move on with their day.
posted by cortex at 10:47 AM on January 23

I brought this up 4 years ago.
posted by vacapinta at 10:52 AM on January 23

MetaMetaFilterFilterFilter
posted by It's Raining Florence Henderson at 10:56 AM on January 23 [1 favorite]

I brought this up 4 years ago.

AncientHistoryFilter.
posted by davejay at 10:56 AM on January 23

the filter prefix is like a personality fixation, only more obnoxious.

Pet-peeve-filter; also, isn't it a suffix?
posted by TedW at 10:59 AM on January 23

MetaMetaFilterFilterFilter: MetaMetaFilterFilterFilter
posted by iamkimiam at 11:03 AM on January 23

"-filter" is morpheme-level suffix, whereas "FooFilter:" is a clause-level prefix. Everybody wins!
posted by cortex at 11:03 AM on January 23

Pet-peeve-filter; also, isn't it a suffix?
Only if you read left to right.
posted by dawson at 11:04 AM on January 23

"-filter" is morpheme-level suffix

Whereas MetaFilter is a morphine-level fix.
posted by It's Raining Florence Henderson at 11:06 AM on January 23 [3 favorites]

cortexfilter.
posted by Brandon Blatcher at 11:08 AM on January 23

morpheme-level suffix is redundant. Just saying saying.
posted by iamkimiam at 11:11 AM on January 23

I'mNAL.
posted by cortex at 11:19 AM on January 23

I guess that in addition to favoriting, I should also save the favorited comment just in case it disappears.
posted by theroadahead at 11:22 AM on January 23 [1 favorite]

This should have been posted to ObviousFilter.
posted by DU at 11:27 AM on January 23

PiggybackFilter: I really don't much care what people do here (and what if I did, then what?) because most things can be overlooked or ignored or dismissed. The IAMANAL thing though, that one is tough to take. Why do some insist on doing that?
posted by dawson at 11:37 AM on January 23

NalgeneFilter
posted by cowbellemoo at 12:14 PM on January 23

dawson: it's law school, mostly. it teaches you to be scared of people accidentally relying on what you tell them over a cup of coffee as legal advice, which can get your ass handed to you by your state bar. it's less obnoxious in real life, promise. (I just overheard my boss, yesterday, say to a coworker, "Now, you know nothing I'm telling you is legal advice..." before moving on with whatever legal advice he was giving her.)
posted by greekphilosophy at 12:22 PM on January 23 [1 favorite]

n00bfilter
posted by ob at 12:45 PM on January 23 [2 favorites]

MeTa: your favorite 'Filter sucks
posted by oaf at 1:10 PM on January 23 [1 favorite]

ActivatedCharcoalFilter

For that fresh, pure Meta taste.
posted by backseatpilot at 1:15 PM on January 23

Oh my god; I never really noticed that before in AskMe but now it's going to bug me to no end.
posted by yeoz at 2:08 PM on January 23

yeoz, being a demented stalker, I followed the flickr link in yr profile. All I'll say is, thank God Obama isn't more white than he is. That looks too much like DJ Qualls.
posted by dawson at 2:19 PM on January 23

DingleberryFilter.
posted by grapefruitmoon at 2:25 PM on January 23

Perhaps it came from someone recognizing that their question was on a topic that was coming up in AskMe a lot lately, and they threw FooFilter: on the front as a jokey acknowledgment of that.

I'd go a step further and postulate that this user you describe was already familiar with the terms NewsFilter and PoliticsFilter, which show up in posts as early as 10/2000 (MeTa - First complaint about newsfilter? [that must be a newly added title]) and 3/2003 (MeTa - FreeFilter), respectively, and merely adapted it to suit their meme-deranged internestial AskMe purposes.

It's interesting that those two terms have always carried such weighty negative connotations, yet the FooFilter construction has progressed beyond that into this cutesy, blood-boiling affectation we see today.
posted by carsonb at 2:30 PM on January 23

For the same reason people add "-gate" to the end of scandals. Laziness.
posted by terrapin at 3:13 PM on January 23

For the same reason people add "-gate" to the end of scandals. Laziness.

and ism to everything else...
posted by dawson at 4:13 PM on January 23

Lazigatefilterism. You know I hate it.
posted by It's Raining Florence Henderson at 4:15 PM on January 23

I really have no idea why so many would find "____ filter:" annoying enough to actually complain about. If it were actually used in every post then, yeah, that would kind of suck. Right now it is only on the front page of AskMe twice.
posted by Corduroy at 9:19 PM on January 23

ismgatefilter.
posted by cjorgensen at 1:07 PM on January 26

If it helps with anything, it'd be quick-scanning of the page for folks looking for something interesting to read—throwing "GardeningFilter" in front of a question that's otherwise lacking in obvious gardening-related jargon might be part of an asker's attempt to make it clear that, yes, if you like gardening then this question may interest you.

It's more helpful for ignoring questions you're not interested in. I can quickly skip over all foo-based questions (for values of foo that I don't care/know about) if it has a handy FooFilter indicator. Tags don't help, since they're not on the front page.
posted by zamboni at 11:23 AM on January 27

Okay, thanks, I was just wondering if I should be adding -filters to be helpful, the way I tag my questions.
posted by dicetumbler at 7:57 AM on January 28