Letters, oh we get letters

August 18, 2009 10:06 AM

Pony: Search MeMail?

Is it possible to search your MeMail for a specific word or phrase? I think that would be a helpful pony.

Of course, this may be one of those cases where I imagine some wonderful feature only to learn that it already exists and has since the site was created. If so....never mind.

posted by Miko to feature requests at 10:06 AM (56 comments total)

There's no option to search your MeFi Mail right now but it's something we're considering.
posted by pb at 10:22 AM on August 18

Of all the sekrit features that mods have that probably everyone should have, searching MeMail is my second-favorite.
posted by jessamyn at 10:30 AM on August 18

and your first-favourite would be??
posted by gman at 10:39 AM on August 18

bannination for asking silly question.
posted by piratebowling at 10:43 AM on August 18

but that's not a 'sekrit' feature.
posted by gman at 10:45 AM on August 18

the holodeck.
posted by jessamyn at 10:50 AM on August 18 [23 favorites]

The holodeck is indeed awesome.
posted by loquacious at 10:53 AM on August 18

Wow, people are so popular that they get enough MeMail to need to search it? I feel sadly neglected and unpopular...
posted by This Guy at 11:16 AM on August 18 [3 favorites]

It's not like I get a ton (and it's not necessarily for being popular...being annoying also is a great way to get more mail)...but after a couple years it adds up enough that it's a little onerous to page through it to find one link or something like that.

Glad it's in consideration, thanks.
posted by Miko at 11:21 AM on August 18

The best part is that we didn't even have to build the holodeck, we just called up a simulation of it on itself.
posted by cortex at 11:25 AM on August 18 [5 favorites]

What if the holodeck breaks and you are stuck inside the simulated holodeck? I guess you could pass the time recreating stupid STTNG plots.
posted by DU at 11:45 AM on August 18

All my mail doesn't even require a scrollbar (sigh).
posted by doctor_negative at 11:51 AM on August 18

DU: "I guess you could pass the time recreating stupid STTNG plots."

I'm gonna go ahead and guess that they do that even when it's working.
posted by shmegegge at 11:51 AM on August 18

I'm still not clear on whether or not they originally had an actual holodeck, or were somehow able to just to have one assembled by sheer intention.
posted by Burhanistan at 11:52 AM on August 18

What came first, the holodeck or the holodeck?
posted by blue_beetle at 11:52 AM on August 18

Very clever, Mr. Beetle, but it's holodecks all the way down.
posted by cortex at 11:54 AM on August 18 [18 favorites]

Now I'm not sure if I'm looking at my screen or if I'm looking into it.
posted by Burhanistan at 11:56 AM on August 18

Note to self: In the future, get into the holodeck and simulate a time machine that comes back to here to deposit a holodeck for me to...ah, here it is now!
posted by DU at 12:10 PM on August 18

Didn't realize MeFi mail was still working. I guess I could use to search for A MeFi mail rather than to search my MeFi mail.
posted by JohnnyGunn at 12:11 PM on August 18

I don't always get mefimail, but when I do, I get Dos Equis
posted by Rumple at 12:34 PM on August 18

Note to self: In the near future, get into the holodeck and simulate a time machine that allows me to travel forward in time, club DU over the head just as he is about to program his time machine and have it send a holodeck back to me instead...ah here it is now!
posted by vacapinta at 12:54 PM on August 18

Note to self: watch Bill & Ted's Bogus Journey again.
posted by cortex at 12:59 PM on August 18

Note to self, supplemental: drink first.
posted by cortex at 12:59 PM on August 18 [2 favorites]

This Billandtedian quantum physics is a bit much for me to get my little head around.
posted by Burhanistan at 1:02 PM on August 18

Weak, partial work around until the evil admin overlords get tired of holodeck made bonbons and do some work towards letting the snarking masses have their long denied Mefiail freedom:

Have our Mefimail sent to your mail (click the "Forward MeFi Mail to email?" check in edit profile section), where you can search thorough it there. It only works for mail that's sent to you though because the mods are too busy planning grandma's death via the holodeck panels.
posted by Brandon Blatcher at 1:37 PM on August 18 [1 favorite]

Bah. You mods can keep your sekrit features. Simulations just leave me feeling holo inside.
posted by It's Raining Florence Henderson at 1:44 PM on August 18

Note to self: Correct spacetime errors that have crept in and apparently moved the time travel shenanigans scene from Excellent Adventure to Bogus Journey.
posted by DU at 2:04 PM on August 18

Note to self: reverse the tachyon matrix to shift reserve power to communicators so I can tell DU to shut his filthy mouth.
posted by cortex at 2:13 PM on August 18

What if the holodeck breaks and you are stuck inside the simulated holodeck? I guess you could pass the time recreating stupid STTNG plots.

DUDE! What else would they be doing in there?

Anyway, the holodeck is actually in the TARDIS, which merely a construct of the depressed imagination of Hactar whom is a figment of the imagination of one very depressed android.

Which totally explains how you call up a holodeck from a holodeck.
posted by loquacious at 3:02 PM on August 18

Oh no, I'm trapped in this alternate reality....FOREVER!!!
posted by DU at 4:07 PM on August 18

The only time I get MeMail is when I mention in MeTa that I never get MeMail.
posted by eyeballkid at 5:03 PM on August 18

Before anyone else gets the chance to say it I'll get it in now SAN DIMAS HIGH SCHOOL FOOTBALL RULES
posted by Fiasco da Gama at 5:04 PM on August 18 [1 favorite]

SAN DIMAS HIGH SCHOOL FOOTBALL RULES

Maybe in the Holodeck, but not in real life.
posted by The World Famous at 6:08 PM on August 18

It doesn't matter if you're in a holographic simulation or not. What matters is that you are you. You are you, aren't you?
posted by Burhanistan at 6:11 PM on August 18 [1 favorite]

I wish I had a pony to search my mail.
posted by smackfu at 6:14 PM on August 18

I wish I had a mail pony.
posted by jessamyn at 6:18 PM on August 18

This is the best tangent on a thread that I've read all day! Thanks!
posted by garnetgirl at 6:26 PM on August 18

I wish I had a mail pony.

WYLD STALLYNS RULE!
posted by stavrosthewonderchicken at 7:13 PM on August 18 [1 favorite]

You can send ponies thru the mail either in a box or padded envelope. Determine which way your trade partner would prefer and send accordingly. Ponies should always be sent completely dry, so if you have cleaned up a pony for trade, wait at least two weeks before putting it up for trade or sending out. Just trust me on this one. Mold and mildew grow in an unprecidented speed in transit. Ponies should be wrapped in plain white or uncolored tissue paper and then wrapped in plastic wrap or zip loc type baggies before being put in either a box or padded envelope. Packages are subjected to all sorts of hazzards in transit and your pristine pony could end up in a mud puddle, on a porch in the rain or worse, so package it in a water proof wrap. Never use newspaper, or paper with ink of any kind to wrap a pony. Never send in colored plastic baggies or containers of any kind. I CANNOT stress this enough! That gross newspaper ink gets in everything! Stay away from it if at all possible becaus vinyl easily soaks up the lightest of inks and color residual and creates permanent marks and damage.
posted by tellurian at 7:31 PM on August 18

Note to self: note to self: note to self: note to self: note to self: note to self: note to self: note to self: note to self: note to self: note to self:
posted by not_on_display at 7:33 PM on August 18

Note to self: check to see if not_on_display is still breathing. He didn't look too good earlier in the evening.
posted by yhbc at 8:11 PM on August 18

Note to self: DUDE, CUT IT OUT WITH THE FUCKING NOTES ALREADY.
posted by nebulawindphone at 8:26 PM on August 18

nebulawindphone: I set my email client to blacklist myself; all notes from self go straight to the trash.
posted by aubilenon at 8:57 PM on August 18 [1 favorite]

My local loopback is a long tail.
posted by Burhanistan at 9:05 PM on August 18

Seems to me that MeFi Mail pony requests all follow the same pattern: please let me do something with my MeFi Mail that I can already do with my real email.

From which it follows that if MeFi Mail had an SMTP interface, and mail addressed to [e-mail] and sent via that SMTP interface (which would require authorization, much as Gmail's does) ended up in mefite's MeFi Mail inbox, then we could all use standard email clients to manage our MeFi mails and nobody would need to ask for another MeFi mail pony ever again.

MeFi Mail is supposed to be a private messaging system for MeFi members, so the SMTP server would not and should not be able to forward mails to domains other than @mefimail.metafilter.com: simply guessing a mefite's password would not suffice to turn MeFi mail into an open relay for spammers. Also, it should not be possible to get mails into a MeFi mail inbox except by making an authorized connection to MeFi's own SMTP server: addressing something to [e-mail] and sending it out to the cloud should not get it delivered. mefimail.metafilter.com's MX record could point to a black hole, or to a server that generates bounce messages with links to a configuration instructions page.

If I could configure an email client such as Thunderbird or Gmail to generate MeFi mails, I'd be a happy camper. If I could collect them with POP3 so I didn't even have to visit the MeFi mail web page to delete the old ones, I'd be even happier.
posted by flabdablet at 9:08 PM on August 18 [1 favorite]

I think you just called pb's mother terrible names there.
posted by Burhanistan at 9:28 PM on August 18

"The only time I get MeMail is when I mention in MeTa that I never get MeMail."
posted by eyeballkid at 8:03 PM on August 18

Marvin? Is it really you?

And, what flabdablet said.
posted by paulsc at 11:13 PM on August 18

The only time I get MeMail is when I mention in MeTa that I never get MeMail.

I was expecting some kind of flood. Instead I got a single drop. Thanks TPS!
posted by This Guy at 4:43 AM on August 19

The fake mods only get a fake holodeck, which is a storage shed that Meatbomb and I go in and use our imaginations. It is . . . not good.
posted by ND¢ at 5:35 AM on August 19 [1 favorite]

then we could all use standard email clients to manage our MeFi mails and nobody would need to ask for another MeFi mail pony ever again.

"How come when I look at my MeFi Mail on MetaFilter, the html doesn't display? Why aren't the images shown?"
posted by smackfu at 5:48 AM on August 19

Burhanistan : This Billandtedian quantum physics is a bit much for me to get my little head around.

Oh, I had no end of difficulties with this till I read a little known Socratic era document called "The Genereal Relativity of Excellence; a Party On Primer". After that the whole thing made a lot more sense.

A cautionary note though, there is some references to an altered history where the divine leader Napoleon Bonaparte was defeated at or by something called a "Waterloo". It's patently absurd fiction in an otherwise useful document.

To think, what the world would have been like without the revolutionary waterslide technology he gave us. I shudder to imagine such a dark and unholy place.
posted by quin at 8:09 AM on August 19

MeFi Mail is supposed to be a private messaging system for MeFi members, so the SMTP server would not and should not....

...exist.

I appreciate your enthusiasm for this but I feel like we have to jump in and mention that this is not going to happen; it's not a problem we're interested in solving. If you're doing this volume of communicating with MeMail, you should switch over to real email which has all these features.
posted by jessamyn at 8:17 AM on August 19

We just added extremely simple search for MeFi Mail. There's a new Search tab at the top of the page. Post here if anything looks off.

And mark this day on your calendar! We added a new feature to MeFi Mail.
posted by pb at 10:39 AM on August 20 [1 favorite]

Yay! I just saw that and was all OMGZOMG HOW AWESOME especially because I'd just gotten a reply to a really old MeMail. This is the first time I've ever needed a search function and lo, it was added minutes before. Thanks!
posted by Kattullus at 11:17 AM on August 20

Note to self: note to self: note to self: note to self: note to self: note to self: note to self: note to self: note to self: note to self: Note to self: Never do that again! Anything happen while I was out?
posted by not_on_display at 3:14 PM on August 20 [1 favorite]

Why thank you! That's great.
posted by Miko at 10:28 AM on August 21