mefi comment filter groupthink enabler - can i have it back plox? October 16, 2009 2:21 PM   Subscribe

So, uh, has the code behind favorites rendering changed? Not that I... cough... use the... ehrumn.... favorite comment filter groupthink discussion killer...

... but yeah! Let's say I do, on occasion, time to time, on a big thread, pull out that javascript doohickey. It used to work real goodtm. Now it don't. Me dumb web surfer. Me not know good web code. Any ideas?
posted by cavalier to MetaFilter-Related at 2:21 PM (46 comments total) 2 users marked this as a favorite

I have no idea what you are talking about.
posted by jessamyn (staff) at 2:23 PM on October 16, 2009


:P. link from linked earlie thread
posted by cavalier at 2:24 PM on October 16, 2009


We have been making some behind-the-scenes changes to threads that might affect the HTML. We don't have any control over Greasemonkey scripts, and we need to be able to update the site. So I'm afraid you'll have to petition the extension author for help when it breaks.
posted by pb (staff) at 2:25 PM on October 16, 2009


Well, certainly, wasn't asking you not to update the site! Heavens.. just, well, thank you for clarifying that some things done' changin.
posted by cavalier at 2:27 PM on October 16, 2009


heh, sorry to have my anti-site-rearrangement guns blazing. There's just not much we can do from this end in these situations.
posted by pb (staff) at 2:30 PM on October 16, 2009


Soooo yeah, so there we were, and I was like, hey, is anyone out there talented and interested enough to whack the javascript to conform to the new structure? This was totally not meant as a "MeFi people, why did you break my pony" but rather "Oh woe is me, my pony, it is short, but not a Shetland, won't someone fix my little pony? Sparkles? Starbrite?"

Too much imagery? K.

WEB DUDES! MAKE WEB WORK GOOD FOR DORK! DORK THANK!
posted by cavalier at 3:03 PM on October 16, 2009 [2 favorites]


Hugs!
posted by cortex (staff) at 3:07 PM on October 16, 2009


Hugs!

but I still don't understand a thing he's saying...
posted by jessamyn (staff) at 3:14 PM on October 16, 2009 [3 favorites]


There's this script, that does some automagical filtering of a thread based on favorite counts. And that script depends on the specific format of a thread at a source level; some changes pb's made recently have somehow subtly altered the format of threads such that the script in question no longer functions correctly. My spoon is too big. My spoon is too big. My spoon is too big. I am a banana.
posted by cortex (staff) at 3:25 PM on October 16, 2009 [1 favorite]


!()#* you, Cortex. I'm growing some sort of sad pride at always being able to produce a message that jessamyn can't grok -- :( -- then there you are all making sense of my bullshit.
posted by cavalier at 3:29 PM on October 16, 2009


Can someone please join this thread so I don't feel like I'm on a long contact us thread that somehow got posted on meta?
posted by cavalier at 3:29 PM on October 16, 2009


o shi i thought this was the contact form NOBODY PAY ATTENTION TO THAT THING I SAID ABOUT JASON KOTTKE THAT WAS JUST A JOKE
posted by cortex (staff) at 3:31 PM on October 16, 2009 [2 favorites]


Whatever you're all on, I'd like some.
posted by scrump at 3:34 PM on October 16, 2009


cavalier: "Hello. I use a particular GreaseMonkey script. Unfortunately a change to the Metafilter site code has apparently rendered the aforementioned script inoperable. Can the site mods please assist me?"

pb: "No. Try asking whoever wrote the GM script itself."

cavalier: "Given the situation that the site cannot be altered according to the whim of said GreaseMonkey script, can somebody else please utilise their extensive command of the Javascript language to resolve the quandary in which I find myself?"

jessamyn: "Has your postillion been struck by lightning?"
posted by Electric Dragon at 3:36 PM on October 16, 2009 [5 favorites]


Are there still hugs? I would like one, please.
posted by rtha at 3:39 PM on October 16, 2009


Yeah, I have a bookmarklet that does the same thing. I don't use it very often, but that monster balloon boy thread was a prime candidate, and I noticed it's broken today.

When I'm done fixing it I could take a look at the GM script if you can't get the original author to do it. Kinda busy with work at the moment though.
posted by cj_ at 4:09 PM on October 16, 2009


This was fun, let's do it again sometime.
posted by Plutor at 4:12 PM on October 16, 2009


I'll also toss my hat into the ring as volunteer to fix it for you if the original author can't or won't. I've come to develop a perverse pleasure in imagining the mottled expressions that various posters must develop as they scream about the pathological side-effects of using Greasemonkey and other scripts to filter messages here.
posted by mdevore at 4:26 PM on October 16, 2009


This seems like as good a place to ask as any: what ever happened to MetaFilthy? Is it dead? What do people use for quoting nowadays?
posted by roll truck roll at 4:28 PM on October 16, 2009


Ah! Electric Dragon, that was niggling me. Then it came. Derek Jules Gaspard Ulric Niven van den Bogaerde and Patricia Beer.

The Postilion Has Been Struck By Lightning

He was the best postilion
I ever had. That summer in Europe
Came and went
In striding thunder-rain.
His tasselled shoulders bore up
More bad days than he could count
Till he entered his last storm in the mountains.

You to whom a postilion
Means only a cocked hat in a museum
Or a light
Anecdote, pity this one
Burnt at milord’s expense far from home
Having seen every sight
But never anyone struck by lightning.
posted by tellurian at 4:40 PM on October 16, 2009


Its all that small font talk...its like they didn't want us to see it...
posted by Atreides at 5:10 PM on October 16, 2009


Soooo yeah, so there we were, and I was like, hey, is anyone out there talented and interested enough to whack the javascript to conform to the new structure? This was totally not meant as a "MeFi people, why did you break my pony" but rather "Oh woe is me, my pony, it is short, but not a Shetland, won't someone fix my little pony? Sparkles? Starbrite?"

Too much imagery? K.

WEB DUDES! MAKE WEB WORK GOOD FOR DORK! DORK THANK!





cavalier, did you discover where cortex hid the Markovfilter?
posted by iconomy at 5:16 PM on October 16, 2009


Just to be clear, this is not Greasemonkey. This is a simple (!?! the hell do I know) javascript bookmarklet -- see the link above.

And MUAH, the balloon boy thread was exactly where I clicked it, then clicked it, then reloaded, then clicked it again, then said aw hell's bells.
posted by cavalier at 5:17 PM on October 16, 2009


Give it up cavalier. Not only do we now know the truth, but someone has printed it out, crafted a fine origami crane of it, and mailed it in a ribbon tied box to your mother.



In short, the truth is out there.
posted by Atreides at 5:20 PM on October 16, 2009


The difference between Greasemonkey scripts and javascript bookmarklets is minor, with bookmarklets being a slightly irregular subset of scripts. IOW, if one can write a script, one can write (or tweak) a bookmarklet.
posted by mdevore at 5:22 PM on October 16, 2009


for rtha: ) (
posted by aniola at 5:22 PM on October 16, 2009


Aw man! I thougt this was going to be another thread about how people use favorites and whether or not we should have them. It's been too long...

And by too long I mean I hope to never see one again
posted by slogger at 6:48 PM on October 16, 2009


Hey, updated the bookmarklet.. also fixed an annoying bug where it left a bunch of whitespace on metatalk pages. It's here. Go forth and destroy mefi.
posted by cj_ at 6:55 PM on October 16, 2009 [1 favorite]


My bad, I meant to link here.
posted by cj_ at 6:56 PM on October 16, 2009 [1 favorite]


Many thanks, cj_! I kept wanting to take a crack at the meta space problem myself.
posted by dhartung at 9:41 PM on October 16, 2009


Calloo, callay! Rejoice and festivus! cj_ the enabler has enabled us a bold new future full of favorite favoritism!
posted by cavalier at 4:34 AM on October 17, 2009


I'm holding off on hugs for a while. The internet is an anonymous place and some of you might be bitey scratchy owls.
posted by quin at 10:00 AM on October 17, 2009


Many thanks - I also noticed that the script had stopped working.

There was no way I was wading into that thousand-comment balloon-boy thread without being able to filter a bunch of the chaff.
posted by chrisamiller at 10:58 AM on October 17, 2009


I also updated the MetaFilter Thread Highlights Greasemonkey script. Thanks to those of you who use it for reminding me that it exists.
posted by Plutor at 6:51 AM on October 19, 2009


Its all that small font talk...its like they didn't want us to see it...

I imagine it's mumbling, something said that you feel like you need to say, but are ashamed to do so.
posted by filthy light thief at 2:11 PM on October 19, 2009


cj_, can you use that bookmarklet to erase favorites like the old one?
posted by Kevin Street at 9:44 AM on October 20, 2009


Ah, I see the old bookmarklet still works fine when you're logged in. Sorry about that.
posted by Kevin Street at 1:37 PM on October 20, 2009


The change seems to have affected Mondo Meta's "highlight" and "tag" behavior when it's searching on "footer" content. I'll drop the author a comment.
posted by subbes at 6:08 PM on October 20, 2009


Oh, huh, it works on the grey. I guess it just doesn't work in the TSA thread or something. WTF.
posted by subbes at 6:13 PM on October 20, 2009


Works on the grey, broken on the blue. Ah well, it'll be fixed soon enough. GO GREASEMONKEY.
posted by subbes at 6:19 PM on October 20, 2009


The change seems to have affected Mondo Meta's "highlight" and "tag" behavior when it's searching on "footer" content.

Weirdness abounds, my own tagging still works and it is based on message footers. However, my highlighting is all content-based so I'll need to check that. A joyous round of testing to duplicate the problem looms large.

Perhaps joyous is not the correct word.

(I'll try to find and fix the problem by the weekend. If I can duplicate it, I can fix it.)
posted by mdevore at 11:55 PM on October 21, 2009


The best way to replicate what I'm experiencing is to set up a tag with tag text matching someone's username (e.g. cortex) and then go into a thread where he's commented. On the grey, the tag(s) you set will show. On the blue, it won't. Not sure about the green, you know how little cortex posts there.

</stalkerrrrrrrr>
posted by subbes at 2:10 PM on October 22, 2009


Nope, sorry, still not seeing it. I have the following regular expression:

\s(pb|jessamyn|mathowie|cortex)\s

tagged Admin for message footers and the tag shows up for cortex, et al in Gray, Blue, and Green. I specifically checked cortex in all three, plus Music and Projects just to be a thorough sort.

As a check on new tags, I tagged you as gubbins (from your profile) without using regular expressions, whole word only, match case, located in footer then clicked through your Gray, Green, and Blue activity, and your comments were properly tagged on all three.

Soo, looks like I'm going to need more data. You're sure you're using the latest version, right? Greasemonkey script, not the extension? Any weird settings that might not be expected? Can you give an exact tag and settings which is failing or are all of them no matter what?
posted by mdevore at 10:52 PM on October 23, 2009


Sure, give me until Sunday though. My husband's also experiencing it, so I'll point him to this thread and get his input.
posted by subbes at 10:14 AM on October 24, 2009


subbes : "Sure, give me until Sunday though. My husband's also experiencing it, so I'll point him to this thread and get his input."

Actually I don't use Mondo Meta. The issue I was having was with the Admin/Poster labels from MeFi Navigator not showing up a few days ago, but that seems to have fixed itself.
posted by shammack at 10:20 AM on October 24, 2009


I've got GM 0.8.20090...&c. (the most recent) running on FF 3.5.3 on OSX Leopard. I have four tags set up: "jessamin" "cortex" "mathowie" and " pb " all matching on footer (I routinely typo regexps so I don't use 'em).

Wait, hang on, now it's working. That was odd...

False alarm, everyone! Sorry.
posted by subbes at 10:26 AM on October 24, 2009


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