this new rule is not my favorite

February 18, 2009 4:30 PM

"You hit your favorite limit for the day." WTF? Can someone please tell me why we have a limit, what the limit is, and why the hell it's not in the FAQ?

I like to favorite things. A lot. Why is there a limit now? Am I really going to break the site if I favorite things "too much"?

posted by marble to MetaFilter-related at 4:30 PM (144 comments total)

Here's the backstory.
posted by cortex at 4:32 PM on February 18 [1 favorite]

I believe the limit is 100 per day, and it was put in place when a few users thought it was hilarious to favorite 17,000 things per day for a while, causing problems for the server (not to mention making the data pretty much useless).
posted by mathowie at 4:33 PM on February 18 [2 favorites]

Tehloki rule.
posted by klangklangston at 4:33 PM on February 18 [1 favorite]

Also, the hard limit is a sop to the regulars in the financial threads who complain about fiat favorites. That's also why the font is gold.
posted by klangklangston at 4:34 PM on February 18 [18 favorites]

I guess you can turn NoScript back on now.
posted by Sys Rq at 4:35 PM on February 18 [1 favorite]

*sigh*. Ok. I will deal. I didn't realize I had favorited so many things recently.
posted by marble at 4:35 PM on February 18 [1 favorite]

We never did get that "Stupid" [-] button.
posted by Artw at 4:36 PM on February 18 [6 favorites]

I blame the vaccination threads. Too many good comments.
posted by marble at 4:37 PM on February 18 [1 favorite]

In retrospect, there's a lot of goofing and very little backstory in that thread. Here's what I said at the time; here's some more from Jessamyn.

Short version: blame tehloki, the limit is there to put an sanity-check cap in place in the case of crazy abusive outlier behavior, and hug tehloki.
posted by cortex at 4:37 PM on February 18 [2 favorites]

Oh and pretty please can someone put it in the FAQ?

And you couldn't quash someone specifically?

What a bummer, I liked that guy's music. Some of it anyway. Mario in the Barrio always makes me smile (I think that's the title).
posted by marble at 4:39 PM on February 18 [1 favorite]

Hi, Beth.
posted by dios at 4:40 PM on February 18 [3 favorites]

Yeah, I totally blame tehloki for the fact I can only favourite 365,000 items per year. Oh, the humanity.
posted by DarlingBri at 4:44 PM on February 18 [2 favorites]

I have extra favorites left for today. A giveaway at $25/ea.
posted by terranova at 4:44 PM on February 18 [2 favorites]

I'd like to favorite a hundred comments someday.
posted by box at 4:49 PM on February 18 [1 favorite]

I was going to make a joke post, "Collecting unused favorites here" or something like that but I'm not that much of a favorite whore.
posted by Durin's Bane at 4:54 PM on February 18 [2 favorites]

I'd like to favorite a hundred comments someday too. Monkeys at typewriters could do better than you sorry lot. BE MOAR HLARIUS
posted by Ambrosia Voyeur at 4:58 PM on February 18 [6 favorites]

Because you can only love me so much.
posted by The Straightener at 5:00 PM on February 18 [2 favorites]

Who the hell do you think you are -- Robert Scoble?
posted by mcwetboy at 5:00 PM on February 18 [1 favorite]

We could do like Faving Safari tourist packages. Load a bunch of mefites into a bus and take them on a tour of funny and poignant and nutso content, giving a little running spiel along the way to explain in soundbytes the history and context of this comment and that post, stopping now and then so folks can get out and really favorite a bunch of things at once at a good lookout point.

And then it would be back to the hotel for surf & turf dinner and karaoke in the lounge.
posted by cortex at 5:01 PM on February 18 [8 favorites]

This has never come up for me because I set an arbitrary total number of favorites that I'll give. If something gets added, something else gets taken away.

If I could manage to do this with books, my girlfriend would be much less annoyed with me.
posted by dersins at 5:06 PM on February 18 [1 favorite]

cortex, isn't that what the sidebar is for, minus the fine dining experience?
posted by filthy light thief at 5:09 PM on February 18 [1 favorite]

The sidebar is more of an episodic-content self-directed audiobook walking tour type thing. Which, you know, that's great and all but then you've got folks with like mobility issues or just a tight vacation schedule and what they're looking for is more of a catered favoriting experience. And that's what we at Metafilter Pro Tours focus on.
posted by cortex at 5:12 PM on February 18 [2 favorites]

"If I could manage to do this with books, my girlfriend would be much less annoyed with me."

This is a big part of why I haven't bought a book in years—the library stores things for me, and all I have to do is pay my taxes. Seriously, if I bought every book I liked? I'm reminded of a high school friend whose dad's reading habit essentially destroyed the foundation of their home, simply by putting so much weight on it. At the time, I looked on with envy (he'd read so many books! He owned so many books!). Now I reminisce with pity.
posted by klangklangston at 5:13 PM on February 18 [4 favorites]

Speaking of favorites, I just found out today that you can favorite yourself. How long has this been going on? Do people routinely favorite themselves? What is stopping me from giving myself a 100 favorites a day (I'd have to make a 100 comments a day first, but I could buckle down and get to work if need be)?
posted by Secret Life of Gravy at 5:18 PM on February 18 [1 favorite]

I buy every book I like, because I am an evangelist and my friends are cheap and lazy.
posted by Ambrosia Voyeur at 5:19 PM on February 18 [3 favorites]

hi marble.
hi dios.
posted by exlotuseater at 5:19 PM on February 18 [1 favorite]

What is stopping me from giving myself a 100 favorites a day

You should try this as a social experiment!
posted by Artw at 5:20 PM on February 18 [1 favorite]

the library stores things for me, and all I have to do is pay my taxes.

I'm with you on the library. But, on the other hand, I've got hold #619 on the first available of 69 copies of Malcolm Gladwell's newest book so If I realistically want to read it in the next year I'm, pretty much going to have to buy it.
posted by dersins at 5:20 PM on February 18 [1 favorite]

How long has this been going on?

Since the beginning of favorites, basically.

Do people routinely favorite themselves?

Define routinely. It's not super common, but it happens. Relatively few favoriters have every favorited themselves, and I don't know that more than a handful have favorited themselves a lot; those who have favorited themselvs a lot are often newish folks who don't favorite much in general, so it's hard to know if it makes sense to do other than partition them into their own bucket of favoriter-types.

What is stopping me from giving myself a 100 favorites a day (I'd have to make a 100 comments a day first, but I could buckle down and get to work if need be)?

Some modicum of self-control and/or dignity, presumably.

I ran some numbers on this stuff a good long time ago; maybe it's time to give it another pass.
posted by cortex at 5:23 PM on February 18 [1 favorite]

I was favoriting myself the whole time I was reading this.

Or is that not what you meant
posted by scrump at 5:25 PM on February 18 [11 favorites]

I was favoriting myself the whole time I was reading this.

FYI, that's illegal in North Dakota now.
posted by dersins at 5:26 PM on February 18 [3 favorites]

Preventing you from reading Malcolm Gladwell is just one of the many services your library provides. In a similar vein, the staff at the circulation desk are required to slap you if you attempt to check out a Dan Brown novel.
posted by stet at 5:27 PM on February 18 [9 favorites]

WTF? Can someone please tell me why we have to be so fucking hostile when creating Meta posts?
posted by KokuRyu at 5:28 PM on February 18 [1 favorite]

hi exlotuseater!
posted by dios at 5:28 PM on February 18 [1 favorite]

See, I knew someone was going to give me shit for mentioning Gladwell, but the fact is that sometimes I like pop sociology. Also, the hold list for Gary Lutz's most recent collection of stories consisted of pretty much just me, and so made for a poor example.
posted by dersins at 5:31 PM on February 18 [1 favorite]

The only thing I've been frustrated on is Airtight Garage, and you can't even find that in print (all the libraries that are on ILL have it as non-circ). Though as I get closer to burning through everything I think might be interesting in our local branches, I might get less gleeful about the library. Still, should take me a while.
posted by klangklangston at 5:35 PM on February 18 [1 favorite]

The mods here have, in the past, said we should see and use favorites for whatever we think they should be used for. Until the favorite tagging option is introduced, I see favorites as being simply a quick way to assign a simple measure of indicative popularity to a post or comment.

Frankly, I think favoriting as a means to save something you'd like to look at again later is pretty much useless until the favorites tagging ability (mathowie mentions it here) is implemented. Even with just over 600 comments, trying to find a specific thing I favorited is not at all an intuitive process.

I long for the day I can tag my favorites in specific categories such as 'funny', 'goodpoint', 'excellentcomment" and so on. That would add some much needed functionaility to the favorites system. As it currently stands, however, favorites exist for no other function than simply to say "x amount of users thought this post/comment was good for some reason."

I'm told that del.icio.us is a substitute to favorites tagging, but I've tried del.icio.us and didn't understand its reason for being, let alone why it would substitute the ability to tag your favorites right here on MeFi itself. Why would I favorite an item here on MeFi and then double the work by doing it all again at another site?

So if I could just use this opportunity to ask Matt, pb and the other mods... is favorite tagging still being worked on? And if yes, any idea on how much longer until it comes into existence?
posted by Effigy2000 at 5:42 PM on February 18 [1 favorite]

You seem pretty upset about this, marble. Maybe you've had enough favorites for the day, huh?
posted by Navelgazer at 5:42 PM on February 18 [1 favorite]

All these favorites are yours, except this one. Attempt no clicking here.
posted by loquacious at 5:47 PM on February 18 [3 favorites]

mathowie writes "(not to mention making the data pretty much useless)."

What's the data "useful" for, anyway?
posted by orthogonality at 5:54 PM on February 18 [1 favorite]

Oh, as long as we're on the topic of favorites, why does "popular favorites" show only one page?

I know there's a "long tail" problem, but my single page ends with a comment with 51 favorites. While I don't expect to see my comments that got two or three favs, I'd like to see the nine to fifty range ordered by popularity.
posted by orthogonality at 5:59 PM on February 18 [1 favorite]

If I see something good enough today, I suppose I'll have to de-favorite something and re-spend one favorite. I can do that, right?
posted by marble at 6:02 PM on February 18 [1 favorite]

I can't believe that no one made a FFP about the chimp that mauled its owner and then was shot by the police. What an awesome FFP! Hatin' on the pigs, should people keep wild animals as pets...endless possibilities there. I'll be that would get a lot of favorites.
posted by fixedgear at 6:03 PM on February 18 [3 favorites]

*marks self as best answer*
posted by Brandon Blatcher at 6:04 PM on February 18 [1 favorite]

I can't believe that no one made a FFP about the chimp that mauled its owner and then was shot by the police.

Someone sort of did, kinda. It's been a fun day.
posted by cortex at 6:07 PM on February 18 [1 favorite]

Define routinely. It's not super common, but it happens. Relatively few favoriters have every favorited themselves, and I don't know that more than a handful have favorited themselves a lot; those who have favorited themselvs a lot are often newish folks who don't favorite much in general, so it's hard to know if it makes sense to do other than partition them into their own bucket of favoriter-types.

Try replacing "favorite" with "Smurf," and this clump of esoteric nonsensical craziness now totally makes sense!
posted by ORthey at 6:10 PM on February 18 [4 favorites]

Eeeuwwgh! Brandon, I see what you did there. That's nasty.
posted by Secret Life of Gravy at 6:15 PM on February 18 [1 favorite]

Someone sort of did, kinda. It's been a fun day.

So this would be a good time to ask if you favorite something in a deleted FPP does it count?
posted by Secret Life of Gravy at 6:18 PM on February 18 [1 favorite]

You seem pretty upset about this, marble. Maybe you've had enough favorites for the day, huh?

I honestly think you ought to sit down calmly, take a stress pill, and think things over.
posted by katillathehun at 6:22 PM on February 18 [3 favorites]

I can't tell if you guys are just teasing me (probably likely) or you didn't see my comment here, very early in this thread:

*sigh*. Ok. I will deal. I didn't realize I had favorited so many things recently.
posted by marble at 6:35 PM on February 18 [+] [!]

I am calm. I accept my fate. I am not angry. I was a bit miffed earlier, but I am no longer. And I am genuinely surprised I favorited so many things in a single day. I sprinkle favorites liberally, but I hadn't run up against the limit until today. Apparently the limit dates from August 31, 2007 or thereabouts.

Also, I still would appreciate it if this were mentioned in the FAQ. It only takes a minute to write an entry for it. Please?

I'll feel more mellow once I've had my ninth Diet Mountain Dew for the day. I'm still working on number eight.
posted by marble at 6:32 PM on February 18 [2 favorites]

Is there an upper limit for flagging?

(Just curious. I've flagged maybe 5 or 6 comments/posts)
posted by Dumsnill at 6:36 PM on February 18 [1 favorite]

God I hate when people say "It'll only a minute" when they aren't the ones doing the work.
posted by Brandon Blatcher at 6:36 PM on February 18 [1 favorite]

all in all, not in this thread
posted by Dumsnill at 6:38 PM on February 18 [1 favorite]

sample:

Why can't I favorite more than 100 things per day?

Because users can't be trusted not to misuse their powers. See here.

Okay I was wrong. That took two minutes. If you want it written the way I write emails to the public at work (neutral officialese for which I have been praised), I can do it in ten. But I think the mods can do it better.
posted by marble at 6:47 PM on February 18 [1 favorite]

The primary FAQ-wranglin' mod is doing a lot of flying today, so that's part of the deal there.
posted by cortex at 6:51 PM on February 18 [1 favorite]

Eat it, loser.
posted by rocketman at 7:01 PM on February 18 [2 favorites]

Okay I was wrong. That took two minutes. If you want it written the way I write emails to the public at work (neutral officialese for which I have been praised), I can do it in ten. But I think the mods can do it better.

They probably could. but there's no way of knowing what else they're doing behind the scenes that may be preventing them from stoppping right this second and updating the FAQ to your precise specifications.

Chill.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 7:05 PM on February 18 [2 favorites]

Stop favoritin' and start contributin', HO!
posted by sixcolors at 7:16 PM on February 18 [1 favorite]

I buy books when they're something I want to keep forever, and cheap secondhand books when I want to read them and give them to a friend or donate 'em to the library or leave 'em in an airport or whatnot.
posted by box at 7:42 PM on February 18 [1 favorite]

jessamyn can fly? Cool!
posted by Pronoiac at 7:42 PM on February 18 [3 favorites]

Marble, I was just trying to make a stupid joke, a la, "What do you mean I'm cut off!? I know my limits! You can't just decide I'm drunk!"

No offense intended at all, I swear.
posted by Navelgazer at 7:43 PM on February 18 [1 favorite]

Instead of favoriting 100 things a day, why not try favoriting the same thing 100 times a day. That's what I do.
posted by blue_beetle at 8:05 PM on February 18 [2 favorites]

Sometimes I find my mouse lingering for just a few seconds over the + next to my own posts and comments. No one will notice... It would just be for the bookmark function... If I favorite myself just this once, it'll push me just over the 10 favorites contact activity bar, and then everyone will recognize the brilliance of my contributions...

But I just can't do it. What if somebody saw!
posted by lunit at 8:16 PM on February 18 [1 favorite]

I can't tell if you guys are just teasing me (probably likely) or you didn't see my comment here, very early in this thread

You made a comment? Aw, heck. I was just quoting 2001.

OPEN THE FAVORITE BAY DOORS, HOWIE.
posted by katillathehun at 8:17 PM on February 18 [1 favorite]

I would have liked it if the number was 86, or 127, but 100 is so Time Magazine.

Regarding favoriting yourself: As of the October dump, about 1400 have done it once, with another 650 users performing self-love between twice and 500 or so times.
posted by rakish_yet_centered at 8:18 PM on February 18 [1 favorite]

I keep exactly 100 favorites, and every time I add a new favorite, I go through my old favorites and remove one to keep the count at 100. I've been doing this for a while now. OTOH, it keeps me from favoriting some stuff just because I know I'd be too lazy to find something to remove. But, usually if it's something interesting, I can find something less-so to remove...

I think that doing this keeps favorites useful for me. If I want to look at something later, I can go back to my favorites, and find it almost immediately. I really don't understand how some people can have thousands of favorites and still have favorites be useful to them.
posted by yeoz at 8:22 PM on February 18 [1 favorite]

What needs to happen is we each get 100 favorites, but we can spend them however we please. So, like, I could favorite three different comments 33 times, or one comment 100 times, or 100 different comments once.

Ooh! Can we get rollover favorites too? There's a couple zingers over there in the North Dakotan Abortion (that happens to be about abortion) that I want to drop 300,000 favorites on.

MAKE IT SO.
posted by dirtdirt at 8:24 PM on February 18 [3 favorites]

Awesome. Now let's do the same thing for comments. How does ten a day sound?
posted by Ian A.T. at 9:25 PM on February 18 [1 favorite]

Fun fact: Threads tangentially related to favorites will get fairly long in hopes that other people take the initiative and favorite everyone.
posted by flatluigi at 9:39 PM on February 18 [1 favorite]

What needs to happen is we each get 100 favorites, but we can spend them however we please

You should have a certain number of favourite points per day, so if you only favourite one item in a day, it gets all your points. When you favourite another thing, that halves the number of points the first item gets, and so on.

Because, you know, the new server is just idling, and this is Serious Business.
posted by pompomtom at 9:53 PM on February 18 [1 favorite]

OPEN THE FAVORITE BAY DOORS, HOWIE.

You keep talking like that and I'm going to want to inject my satellite into your Hohmann transfer.

In the meantime I'll just have to entertain myself by trapping lukemeister at a Lagrange point somewhere near a gas giant and instigating a fusion ignition.
posted by loquacious at 9:54 PM on February 18 [1 favorite]

You know what would be a nice pony, and a real pain-in-the-ass to implement? Favourites Categories. We can organise them ourselves, set them up however we want (like "Good lulz" and "Interesting info" and "What a dipshit") and after we've favourited the stuff in-thread, we can go onto our profile pages and organise them there. Like the GoodReads mechanism for organising your book collection. Yeah I think this is an awesome idea.
posted by turgid dahlia at 9:56 PM on February 18 [1 favorite]

"It'll only a minute"

I accidentally the whole minute.
posted by turgid dahlia at 9:57 PM on February 18 [1 favorite]

jessamyn can fly? Cool!

Of course I can fly.

If someone could enter this in the "ask a question" box on the faq page I'll add it to the faq.
posted by jessamyn at 10:09 PM on February 18 [1 favorite]

Submitted on FAQ page.
posted by Jonsnews at 10:40 PM on February 18 [1 favorite]

marble: "Batender! Gimme anuthur vodka an montin dew and three more favverites!"

mathowie: "You've had enough favorites for tonight. Do you want me to call you a cab?"

marble: "You cant tell ME that ive had too manny favrites!!

mathowie: "This is my bar. You are done favoriting. You don't have to go home, but you can't stay here."

marble: "Nobuddy tol' me! Why wuzzint it in da F...F...F...A...Q??"

mathowie: "How about that cab?"
posted by SteveTheRed at 11:07 PM on February 18 [3 favorites]

turgid dahlia - Favorites Categories look like a job for delicious.com.
posted by Pronoiac at 11:16 PM on February 18 [1 favorite]

Hi beth! Long time no chat. Things haven't changed much around here since the old days, have they?
posted by dg at 2:42 AM on February 19 [1 favorite]

Stop favoritin' and start contributin', HO!
posted by sixcolors at 7:16 PM on February 18 [+] [!]

Ho? wtf?

You know that question or five you asked about why oh why do people think you are weird and avoidable?
posted by asockpuppet at 5:00 AM on February 19 [5 favorites]

Ooh, I better get cracking. I'd hate to waste any of my allotted favorites.
posted by DevilsAdvocate at 5:02 AM on February 19 [1 favorite]

You know that question or five you asked about why oh why do people think you are weird and avoidable?

Don't give her any ideas for this week's new AskMe question.
posted by jerseygirl at 5:22 AM on February 19

I'm pretty sure she's not calling anyone a ho, asockpuppet. I think it's more like 'Hey, Ho, Let's Go!' But yes, best not to encourage.
posted by fixedgear at 5:49 AM on February 19

I like Devils Advocate.
posted by netbros at 5:51 AM on February 19

I see that Devils Advocate was very busy in the night.
posted by Secret Life of Gravy at 6:23 AM on February 19

netbros, SLoG, I'd favorite your kind words, but alas, I have used all of my favorites for today.
posted by DevilsAdvocate at 6:39 AM on February 19

Tomorrow's a brand new day.
posted by netbros at 6:42 AM on February 19

Tomorrow's just another day
posted by Dumsnill at 6:46 AM on February 19

oh
posted by Dumsnill at 6:47 AM on February 19

Fun fact: Threads tangentially related to favorites will get fairly long in hopes that other people take the initiative and favorite everyone.

I knew it.
posted by flatluigi at 7:22 AM on February 19 [1 favorite]

The importance of favorites is overstated.
posted by Blazecock Pileon at 7:28 AM on February 19

The Unbearable Lightness of Favourites
posted by Dumsnill at 7:36 AM on February 19

The Favorite is a Harsh Mistress
posted by cortex at 7:43 AM on February 19 [1 favorite]

I was favoriting myself the whole time I was reading this.

FYI, that's illegal in North Dakota now.

As if the ND penal system wasn't already hosed enough, now this.
posted by kingbenny at 7:50 AM on February 19

I’ve clicked the plus for you
I’ve made a big fuss for you
But I just can’t favorite anymore
I’ve flagged as fantastic for you
Done things more drastic for you
You call me an attention whore

You got me asking for FAQ updates
Cause you never make ‘em
It takes me two minutes
How long could it take ‘em?
Just chill the f out
You’re making us cry
I believe it's time for Jess to fly.
posted by SpiffyRob at 8:01 AM on February 19 [2 favorites]

Every time there's a thread about favorites, someone eventually mentions that they periodically delete a few of the favorites they have given, and I end up losing a couple.

You people suck.
posted by yhbc at 8:03 AM on February 19 [4 favorites]

I don't acutally host my own favourites, I just organise links to them in a user friendly way. What you choose to do with them is up to you.
posted by Dumsnill at 8:08 AM on February 19

Am I too late to get one of DevilsAdvocate's favorites for the day?
posted by sambosambo at 8:09 AM on February 19 [1 favorite]

I would like a favorite, please.
posted by shmegegge at 8:10 AM on February 19 [2 favorites]

Hey, I cracked 5k!
posted by robocop is bleeding at 8:17 AM on February 19 [1 favorite]

Every time there's a thread about favorites, someone eventually mentions that they periodically delete a few of the favorites they have given,

I'm pretty sure these are the same people who advocate eating kittens and punching ducklings. I'm not saying they have no hearts, or that they are history's worst monsters...

Well, actually... now that I think about it, that might be the best description I can come up with.
posted by quin at 8:17 AM on February 19 [2 favorites]

Here, have some of mine.
posted by Dumsnill at 8:20 AM on February 19

I heard jessamyn likes books so much she eats them when she's done reading.
posted by lazaruslong at 8:36 AM on February 19 [3 favorites]

365 x 100 = 36,500
posted by found missing at 8:44 AM on February 19

Ho? wtf?

You know that question or five you asked about why oh why do people think you are weird and avoidable?

I think they meant "wagons, ho", not "yo mamma's a ho".
posted by dirigibleman at 9:29 AM on February 19

I heard jessamyn likes books so much she eats them when she's done reading.

This made me LOL IRL. Thank you.
posted by goodnewsfortheinsane at 9:36 AM on February 19

The filter giveth, and the filter taketh away.
posted by Hovercraft Eel at 9:36 AM on February 19

From the backstory thread:

And I like the ego-stroking of getting favorited as much as anyone, but getting a favorite from tehloki is sorta like scoring with the last drunk girl left at the party: yeah, it's nice for a minute, but it leaves me feeling so cold and empty inside....

BECAUSE SHE DOESN'T REALLY LOVE ME *SOB*

I don't think this is an accurate analogy. I choose to believe that tehloki loves us all.
posted by Flunkie at 9:50 AM on February 19 [2 favorites]

Look, if you feel the need to favorite more than 100 things in a day, you are probably tehloki.
posted by Mister_A at 10:10 AM on February 19

Can someone please tell me why we have to be so fucking hostile when creating Meta posts?

THIS...IS...META!
posted by never used baby shoes at 10:26 AM on February 19 [1 favorite]

klangklangston, my grandmother almost broke my dad's VW van back in the day by overloading it with books when he was helping her move. (I'm nuts about the library, and I (usually) don't even mind long waits. I think of it as a gift to my future self, since often it's a delightful surprise to get the notification email.)

I too would love categorizing or tagging of favorites, although it seems like an especially extravagant pony. ("useful", "entertaining" or "restart reading from here" would probably be sufficient for me.)
posted by epersonae at 10:44 AM on February 19

Luckily, I was friends with the folks who took over my old place, so I was able to leave most of my books with them when I moved cross-country. Still, they're heavy, expensive fuckers, even at book rate, and I often miss some of the books I had in college (especially when I get into a debate on MeFi and am like, man, Chantal Mouffe demolished that appeal to rationalism in mediating political conflict!).
posted by klangklangston at 10:51 AM on February 19

This thread is my favorite. And 10lbs of Ford branded Chicle Gum. And a Coke.
posted by buzzman at 10:53 AM on February 19

I'll feel more mellow once I've had my ninth Diet Mountain Dew for the day.

This is rarely true.
posted by Bookhouse at 11:03 AM on February 19

Wow, this thread inspired me to clean out my favorites! I went from several hundred, down to 102, creating a much more equitable favorited-to-favorited-by-others ratio.

Thanks, MetaTalk!
posted by slogger at 11:51 AM on February 19

I was going to favorite every comment in this thread, but I can't decide which 14 of you to spite (15 if I count the thread itself).
posted by cjorgensen at 12:01 PM on February 19 [1 favorite]

Can I be spited? Spouted? Spote? Spitten?

Sput?
posted by katillathehun at 12:09 PM on February 19

Spornt.
posted by cortex at 12:13 PM on February 19 [1 favorite]

I'd favorite that comment 100 times, but I've already made quota today.
posted by Brandon Blatcher at 12:21 PM on February 19

How do you have so many damn favorites? Are you one of those rich people that have libraries in their homes, but haven't read even 1% of those books?

Do you ever go back to read those favorites?

OR...is your school of favoriting all about rewarding the writer?
posted by hal_c_on at 12:32 PM on February 19

I favorited cortex's comment (but only because he put my girlfriend's cat on the internet). The rest of you I am spornting.
posted by cjorgensen at 12:33 PM on February 19

Wow, that's a great cat!
posted by slogger at 12:41 PM on February 19 [2 favorites]

Dang. I'm still trying to figure out how I've botched the mechanism for favorites. At this point, I'm sure it's me, not MeFi, since this whole favorite extravaganza demonstrates that other people's favorites are working for them. But they're not working for me. I favorite something, it updates my total number of favorites, but doesn't add the comment or post to the set. I'm running Saft, which I figure has to be doing it. After disabling Saft, I've logged in from another user account.

http://ask.metafilter.com/97584/Memorializing-fans-inmedium#1422468

See that comment? See how it has one favorite? And how the person who favorited it is cgc373? That comment is accounted for but not included in my favorites.

http://ask.metafilter.com/85799/Help-me-overthink-sex-and-romance#1412971

Same thing with that comment. And neither of them will show up as having been linked for me either. This is driving me crazy.
posted by cgc373 at 1:01 PM on February 19

cgc373: Those two favorites appear on your favorites page from here.
posted by Pronoiac at 1:48 PM on February 19

There was a bug (fave-ordering got twiddled during the recent Difficulties), but we unbugged it.
posted by cortex at 1:57 PM on February 19

Everything about this bugging has now been beautifully unbugged. My 'Filtering is again serene.
posted by cgc373 at 1:59 PM on February 19

because you love not too wisely but too well.
posted by The Whelk at 2:09 PM on February 19

Hihihi to everyone who said hi to me!

The "ho" comment didn't bug me.

And yes, Diet Mountain Dew keeps me calm. But I am on several psychiatric medications so my brain chemistry is not anywhere near normal.

How do you have so many damn favorites? Are you one of those rich people that have libraries in their homes, but haven't read even 1% of those books?

Do you ever go back to read those favorites?

OR...is your school of favoriting all about rewarding the writer?

I really just hit the button when I see something awesome. Sometimes it's a "HELL YEAH! *fist pump*" and sometimes it's a "oh that's a cool turn of phrase" or sometimes it's "three sentences of that comment I agree with so strongly that I really must spend a favorite here, but the rest is meh or not really to my liking" or even "damn, that almost made me cry". Sometimes, I even send mefimail with a subject line of "Fantastic comment" to let them know just how wonderful it was to me.

Basically I am just really grateful for the incredibly amazing stuff I see here. I don't comment much because usually someone has said what I wanted to say already, and been far more eloquent / persuasive / etc than I could have been. I sometimes start to write a comment and then stop when I realize it doesn't add anything to the discussion, sounds awkward, reveals personal details no one cares about, or I'm just not able to express myself well.

I think it's mostly about rewarding the writer. I'd favorite stuff even if only the author saw it.

I pared myself down to a single bookshelf in the past year. I got really sick of toting around books that I'd never read again. I have three boxes of books to sell sitting in my living room for the past... 8 months or more. As much as I'm ready to get rid of them, I have to give them one last look before I let them go, and I'd probably only get $5 or $10 for them at Half Price Books, which is depressing. A solution has been found, though! A friend recently told me about a charity that she gives to that gives book to inmates, so that is where I will send them. It makes me feel all warm inside just thinking about it.

And I'm sorry for being so impatient with the FAQ updating requests. You are right, I needed to chill. This here wine-from-a-box is helping greatly with the chill factor.
posted by marble at 6:31 PM on February 19 [3 favorites]

Box wine and Diet Mountain Dew homebrew winecooler is the shit, it's true.
posted by carsonb at 7:03 PM on February 19 [2 favorites]

Someone did a Doom Patrol FPP, can I give it all 100 of my favourites?
posted by Artw at 7:05 PM on February 19

somtimes I love metatalk
posted by The Whelk at 8:08 PM on February 19

dirtdirt writes "Ooh! Can we get rollover favorites too? There's a couple zingers over there in the North Dakotan Abortion (that happens to be about abortion) that I want to drop 300,000 favorites on.

"MAKE IT SO."

Maybe Matt will give you a bulk purchase discount on 300K UserIDs.
posted by Mitheral at 8:32 PM on February 19

Hi beth! And dios! And exlotuseater! And dg!

I miss all you guys a bunch. I wish there was a #mefi without an ex-wife of mine firmly ensconced in it so I could talk to you again :(
posted by Ryvar at 11:13 PM on February 19

I would just like to state for the record that I can drink two bottles of Boone's Farm in under five minutes, but I get to pick which colors.
posted by Ambrosia Voyeur at 11:24 PM on February 19 [1 favorite]

... You're not choosing flavors, but colors? Do you have plans for your vomit?!
posted by Pronoiac at 12:50 AM on February 20

beth and dios are never in #mefi anymore anyway, dude. And I don't know if exlotuseater is because I never know what the fuck handle people go by there.
posted by cortex at 7:19 AM on February 20

hi dg!

hi ryvar!

hi cortex!

sorry i never come by anymore. i miss the old days ('02-'04) where i still had time and the ability to chat with you crazy fools all day long. but the family and job now just suck all my time. makes me an unhappy boy.
posted by dios at 8:04 AM on February 20

Cortex: ah, okay. Thanks.

dios: yeah, I know how it is.
posted by Ryvar at 10:44 AM on February 20

I would just like to state for the record that I can drink two bottles of Boone's Farm in under five minutes

Imagine what you could do with a grownup beverage!
posted by jonmc at 2:29 PM on February 20

Email me, and I can hook you up with a Chinese favorites farm.
posted by StickyCarpet at 3:03 PM on February 20

But I should warn you, jonmc blew a small fortune with those guys.
posted by StickyCarpet at 3:34 PM on February 20

How'd he get his mouth around it?
posted by carsonb at 4:03 PM on February 20

It was a small fortune.
posted by dersins at 5:15 PM on February 20

Imagine what you could do with a grownup beverage!

I imagine with a grownup beverage... I could be... fucking the whole marketing team? Ew, gross. Growing up sucks. Lettermen's jackets > Brooks brothers jackets.
posted by Ambrosia Voyeur at 5:35 PM on February 20

Hi beth! And dios! And exlotuseater! And dg!
I miss all you guys a bunch. I wish there was a #mefi without an ex-wife of mine firmly ensconced in it so I could talk to you again :(

sorry i never come by anymore. i miss the old days ('02-'04) where i still had time and the ability to chat with you crazy fools all day long. but the family and job now just suck all my time. makes me an unhappy boy.
Yeah and sometimes I wish I still had a job that let me while away whole days with you guys. Life gets in the way like that :-(
posted by dg at 4:53 PM on February 21