How will we validate each other's existences without favorites? February 14, 2009 12:49 PM   Subscribe

Clicking the plus sign to favorite a comment sends me to the top of the page and doesn't add the favorite.

I'm running Firefox 3.0.6 in Windows XP.
posted by EarBucket to Bugs at 12:49 PM (41 comments total)

Do you have scripting turned off? Cuz that's what it sounds like.
posted by dead cousin ted at 12:50 PM on February 14, 2009


This is almost always a result of having some sort of script thing turned off like using NoScript.
posted by jessamyn (staff) at 12:51 PM on February 14, 2009 [3 favorites]


Ah, here's something from a recent email we went to someone else with the same problem

"That's usually the result of someone using NoScript with Firefox, which automatically blocks the javascript necessary to favorite comments (which are loaded from Google's googleapis.com server if I remember correctly).

Check to make sure you're allowing all the necessary scripts, and favoriting comments should work again for you."
posted by jessamyn (staff) at 12:54 PM on February 14, 2009


Yeah make sure googleapis.com is enabled if you are using Noscript. That's the scripts for favorites
posted by Deflagro at 12:54 PM on February 14, 2009


Have you eaten your cookies?
posted by carsonb at 12:58 PM on February 14, 2009 [1 favorite]


If I remember correctly, the addition of googleapis.com for favorites is a relatively new addition so you might still have that blocked in noscript.
posted by dead cousin ted at 12:59 PM on February 14, 2009


This happens to me at work (started recently) - I assume there is nothing I can do about it there? We use IE.
posted by paduasoy at 1:07 PM on February 14, 2009


No, I'm not running noscript. I tried logging out, deleting all my MetaFilter cookies, restarting FireFox, and logging back in, but that didn't do the trick.
posted by EarBucket at 1:08 PM on February 14, 2009


Hm, well then I suggest dousing your computer in lighter fluid and setting it on fire.
posted by dead cousin ted at 1:25 PM on February 14, 2009 [2 favorites]


This also happens to me sometimes. Since it seems to be an on-again, off-again problem, I usually pout a little and forget until the next time I try to favorite something and it works - which makes me happy! (This is after trying all of the tricks listed by EarBucket...)
posted by Kimothy at 1:29 PM on February 14, 2009


I emailed Matt about it and he said, "Yeah, we use google's hosting of the javascript necessary (to save load on our servers), so you'll have to let noscript have access to those."

So I let NoScript have access. Still no go.
posted by weapons-grade pandemonium at 1:30 PM on February 14, 2009


You are out of favorites.
posted by cashman at 1:39 PM on February 14, 2009 [2 favorites]


I have experienced this before, without noscript running.
Google has been slightly patchy in the last weeks... I wonder if maybe you are not able to access googleapis.com for some network reason.
posted by Meatbomb at 1:58 PM on February 14, 2009


i'll bet if you favorite me it will work. if that doesn't do it, if 500 people favorite this comment, it will work.
posted by msconduct at 2:15 PM on February 14, 2009 [4 favorites]


Ah, here's something from a recent email we went to someone else with the same problem

"That's usually the result of someone using NoScript with Firefox, which automatically blocks the javascript necessary to favorite comments (which are loaded from Google's googleapis.com server if I remember correctly).

Check to make sure you're allowing all the necessary scripts, and favoriting comments should work again for you."

posted by jessamyn at 3:54 PM


One week ban.
posted by gman at 2:17 PM on February 14, 2009 [5 favorites]


Have you tried clearing your cache as well? Whenever I've had this problem I've solved it by clearing my cache and Mefi cookies and restarting Firefox.
posted by des at 2:27 PM on February 14, 2009


You are out of favorites.

Could someone favorite this for me?
posted by EarBucket at 2:43 PM on February 14, 2009 [3 favorites]


That is just Metafilter's passive aggressive way of telling you noone cares about your opinion.
posted by qvantamon at 4:25 PM on February 14, 2009 [2 favorites]


Could it be that they're favoriting comments that have been deleted since they loaded the page?
posted by drjimmy11 at 4:54 PM on February 14, 2009


also, re: this silly-ass "Noscript" stuff:

YOU NEED JAVASCRIPT TO MAKE THE INTERNET WORK.

If you are that afraid of (whatever attack you are imagining on your machine via js), you need to turn off the computer and assume the fetal position under a big pile of blankets. I say this because I am a developer by day, and while you can work around a lot of things, you can't work around what amounts to people intentionally crippling their own web browser. We may as well start building sites that only use the left side of the screen, because some people have decided to smash the right side of theirs with a hammer.
posted by drjimmy11 at 4:57 PM on February 14, 2009 [1 favorite]


Well that's nice, Mr. Developer. I like to actually have control over what happens in my browser, thanks.
posted by dead cousin ted at 5:01 PM on February 14, 2009 [3 favorites]


You might want to go search for "NoScript blocks," note that it's repeatedly noted as blocking various attacks seen in the wild, then suck it up & put warnings on your site that scripting is necessary for various functionality. You know. Gracefully degrading.
posted by Pronoiac at 5:22 PM on February 14, 2009


I don't know about you, but when I buy only things that I like from the supermarket, I like to visualize it as intentionally crippling the supermarket owners.
Like smashing the right side of their face with a hammer.
posted by weapons-grade pandemonium at 5:27 PM on February 14, 2009 [1 favorite]


I feel a twitch in my right eye. One of you has opted not to favorite that comment.
posted by weapons-grade pandemonium at 5:32 PM on February 14, 2009


It happened to me the other day.
googleapis.com was blocked by AdBlock.
posted by bru at 5:34 PM on February 14, 2009


It's doing the same thing to me right now.
posted by middleclasstool at 6:10 PM on February 14, 2009


Hmm. Got back home and it's working now. Weird.
posted by EarBucket at 8:04 PM on February 14, 2009


You may want to clean your caches of everything in it - I had this once, and opening the error console in Firefox showed me a script error. Flushing my cashes and reloading everything got me a working copy of all the scripts, and that fixed it for me.
posted by DreamerFi at 2:12 AM on February 15, 2009


Weird. Just like EarBucket, it fixed itself today.
posted by middleclasstool at 9:49 AM on February 15, 2009


Like Paduasoy, this happens to me at work, where we use IE, but it seems totally random and intermittent. I can never tell why it works or doesn't.
posted by peep at 12:20 PM on February 15, 2009


(Sometimes it's good to do a quick search before posting.)

THAT SAID, in addition to googleapis.com (which was the problem when I asked about this a little while ago), we also now have to give permission to google.com itself, which means allowing all of Google's scripts everywhere since I've got MeFi open pretty much all the time. I don't like that. They's a-creepin' in, I tells ya!

YOU NEED JAVASCRIPT TO MAKE THE INTERNET WORK.

No, I don't. Maybe "to work 100% as the developer intended," but, no, the internet works just fine without Javascript. Certain functions require it, yes, but NoScript lets me decide which of those functions are necessary. If developers feel jilted because I'm blocking their wonderful gifts to mankind, well, tough shit.

I'd prefer to block scripts more surgically--element-by-element, rather than the clunky server-by-server trusted/untrusted system NoScript offers--but beggers can't be choosers. And I be begging. Please sir, can I have some less?

Perhaps certain developers should understand that end users (remember us?) don't always need everything to blink and pop up and make noises on mouseover and hijack the status bar and redirect to who knows where and load applications without asking.
posted by Sys Rq at 1:08 PM on February 15, 2009


the internet works just fine without Javascript

I should add: If it doesn't, you're doing it wrong. You, server-side.
posted by Sys Rq at 1:13 PM on February 15, 2009


Perhaps certain developers should understand that end users (remember us?) don't always need everything to blink and pop up and make noises on mouseover and hijack the status bar and redirect to who knows where and load applications without asking.

But to be clear, then, perhaps certain users should understand that apps frequently work best and most seamlessly when they can utilize all the technologies that are available to them, Javascript being one of them; making the choice to disable Javascript might just mean making the choice to disable functionality that the user might care about. (Note that I'm not necessarily putting you, Sys Rq, in this camp, just using your comment as a launching pad for this thought.)
posted by delfuego at 5:03 PM on February 15, 2009


drjimmy11: "YOU NEED JAVASCRIPT TO MAKE THE INTERNET WORK."

Or, mathowie/pb could just:
   <a href="non_ajax_favoriting_url" onclick="add_favorite_ajax(); return false">

Magical fallback!
posted by Plutor at 5:04 AM on February 16, 2009


Plutor, yes, that's a fallback option... but most people don't realize that that forces a site's developers to maintain two entirely separate mechanisms for any one action, the mechanism that uses AJAX/XmlHttpRequest/whatever-you-want-to-call-it and the mechanism that doesn't. And while yes, it's possible to be clever and do your best to incorporate both mechanisms into the same endpoint (URL), it's not the easiest thing to do, leads to an entirely different form of complicated code, and again, is much harder to maintain than the one-way-to-do-it form of the site.

So yes, a site's developers can do that... but it's harder, and the time and effort required to do that consistently across a site means trading off that time and effort from other things.
posted by delfuego at 6:25 AM on February 16, 2009


delfuego, I agree completely. I do not practice what I preach.
posted by Plutor at 7:22 AM on February 16, 2009


As a fallback, instead of a separate favoriting / flagging mechanism, I'd suggest a page:
"Script access is required for metafilter.com & googleapis.com."
"Testing scripting on googleapis.com - not available. Please enable."
or
"Get on with your bad self!" as appropriate.
posted by Pronoiac at 9:18 AM on February 16, 2009


It's happening to me right now and I don't have any greasemonkey plugin except Grumblebee's profile pic script. (Firefox 2.0.0)
posted by BinGregory at 11:09 PM on February 16, 2009


Metafilter shouldn't use "#" as the placeholder link...
posted by brenton at 12:22 PM on February 18, 2009


And it looks like it no longer does. I clicked a link before the JavaScript had loaded today, and noticed that it brought me to javascript-required.mefi. Nice!
posted by Plutor at 5:34 AM on February 24, 2009


Yay!
posted by jessamyn (staff) at 2:03 PM on February 24, 2009


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