They shoot ponies, don't they?

February 21, 2009 11:27 AM

Meetup thread unpony?

You know how a meetup thread automagically jumps to the "where/when" comment (which is also highlighted) even long after the meetup has ended, so in order to view the subsequently more relevant part (photo box), one is forced to scroll back up?

Could that not happen, please?

posted by Sys Rq to Feature Requests at 11:27 AM (21 comments total)

(Correction: Not highlighted)
posted by Sys Rq at 11:31 AM on February 21, 2009

Why not just click the little photo icon, which takes you to to the #photolist part of the page?

Example.
posted by Partial Law at 11:39 AM on February 21, 2009

click on the photo icon, and you'll jump to the photos.
posted by mathowie (staff) at 11:40 AM on February 21, 2009

I understand your annoyance at this pony, but there's always the 'Home' button on your keyboard (for those times lame meeter-uppers don't snap/post photos). One-touch top-o-thread unponyness.
posted by carsonb at 12:10 PM on February 21, 2009

Or, on an iPhone, click on the bar with the date at the top to go to the top of the page.
posted by Pronoiac at 12:39 PM on February 21, 2009

Is an unpony what you get for your unbirthday?
posted by louche mustachio at 12:59 PM on February 21, 2009

The Unpony.
posted by Lemurrhea at 1:42 PM on February 21, 2009 [1 favorite]

(Correction correction: Sometimes highlighted.)

Okay, yeah. Huh. So apparently that photo icon is a clickable link and not just the "hey, there are photos in the thread now, click the obvious link to it, suffer the now-useless jumping, scroll back up, and view them" indicator I'd always assumed it was. My bad.

I still think the jump down is annoying and useless, even pre-meetup. If it's possible to consistently insert jumps to the important comments, it should be possible to highlight those comments just as consistently while allowing users to retain control of their browsers. Or are we all too dumb and lazy for that?

*enters huff, stomps off in it*
posted by Sys Rq at 2:02 PM on February 21, 2009

The Unpony.

Binky!
posted by Pronoiac at 2:11 PM on February 21, 2009 [1 favorite]

The solution is to only click on smaller meetups like Ottawa.
posted by gman at 2:13 PM on February 21, 2009

I like the automatic jump down even after a meetup is over, because it's a pain to scroll past all the discussion of where the meetup was going to be to see any of the comments that occur after the meetup is decided. This may only be a problem for threads that get really long, though.
posted by ThePinkSuperhero at 2:21 PM on February 21, 2009 [1 favorite]

Sys Rq: "Retain control of their browsers?" Huh?

The link to the specific comment with meetup info is there so people who want to go to the meetup can find the location quickly, on their way out the door.
posted by Pronoiac at 2:22 PM on February 21, 2009

Oh, I know why it's there.

Maybe it is indeed useful for that one purpose, that one time, on the day of the meetup, for the few people who plan to go to it, if for some reason it's too difficult and/or time-consuming for them to scroll down to the highlighted (!?!) comment.

Anyone else who might be interested to see what the folks in Whereversville are up to gets to be jostled around for no good reason.

Maybe instead of killing the pony, it could be tamed? Like, no jumps post-meetup? Meetup+Photos=MeTa-Jump
posted by Sys Rq at 3:02 PM on February 21, 2009

(Or, yeah, the obvious "stop being stupid and click the icon" solution)
posted by Sys Rq at 3:15 PM on February 21, 2009

You seem to be alone on this one.
posted by smackfu at 3:18 PM on February 21, 2009

Perhaps they could create an alternate site for you.
posted by gman at 5:53 PM on February 21, 2009

The purpose of the link to the official-date-and-time comment is first and foremost to aid folks clicking that one time, prior to or on the day of the meetup, with the intent to attend. That's the key function of the meetup thread and the pointer to the time-and-place comment—to help people intending to go to the meetup get to the meetup at the right place and at the right time.

Meetup thread tourism is a fine and admirable hobby, but it's at a much lower priority than active meetup tracking and participation by humans intending to show up in person.
posted by cortex (staff) at 10:44 PM on February 21, 2009

The purpose of the link to the official-date-and-time comment is first and foremost to aid folks clicking that one time, prior to or on the day of the meetup, with the intent to attend. That's the key function of the meetup thread and the pointer to the time-and-place comment—to help people intending to go to the meetup get to the meetup at the right place and at the right time.

Tangential request, then -- if this is so, then why does the New Orleans thread NOT have such a feature? Or is that something I personally have to do?...
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 10:42 AM on February 22, 2009

Yeah, it's done on a per-thread basis by folks organizing the meetup. The general idea is:

1. Call meetup with varying vague notion of when and where at posting time.
2. Hammer out details.
3. Make comment stating hammered-out details.
4. Add link to comment in (3) to the meetup sidebar on the metatalk front page.

I think that step 4 can only be done by the meetup thread poster, but folks can always bug us for a quick edit if there's a problem.
posted by cortex (staff) at 10:55 AM on February 22, 2009

No, step 4 can be done by anyone- for the Brooklyn meetup today, zoomorphic posted the thread, but I posted the comment with final details to the sidebar.
posted by ThePinkSuperhero at 10:59 AM on February 22, 2009 [1 favorite]

Ah, better yet then. (You can tell how often I organize meetups.)
posted by cortex (staff) at 11:02 AM on February 22, 2009