Related Posts

February 8, 2010 2:23 PM

Any word on having "Related Posts" on the blue? Previously, Previously-er.

In AskMe, the bottom of the page has a list of 5 "Related Questions" based on the question's tags. Any chance of getting a "Related Posts" on the Blue? Of course, "quiet you. There's enough to do around here without adding new features" is always a valid response, but Jessamyn likes it!

posted by niles to Feature Requests at 2:23 PM (39 comments total)

I am still in favor of this.
posted by jessamyn (staff) at 2:27 PM on February 8, 2010 [2 favorites]

jessamyn: - "likely mod responses to this thread" [based on other mod responses to similar threads]

I bet an auto-mod would be impossible to get right, but it would be truly awesome to see one action. :)
posted by zarq at 2:41 PM on February 8, 2010

We could also do related MeTa posts. Think of it now: a separate stable for each type of unborn pony, ready for your perusal.
posted by defenestration at 3:04 PM on February 8, 2010

I bet an auto-mod would be impossible to get right, but it would be truly awesome to see one action. :)

I've been working on an SQL script that would do that, but it just keeps trying to ban Sarah Connor all the time.
posted by FishBike at 3:08 PM on February 8, 2010 [1 favorite]

By the way, that absence of sound you hear is us figuring out a way to make this work, not us silently sniggering behind our hands.
posted by jessamyn (staff) at 3:19 PM on February 8, 2010 [1 favorite]

A good FPP already includes related posts (e.g., this one.) Trying to automate this would seem to take some editorial control away from the poster.

And it would take all of the honor away from calling out a double post!
posted by three blind mice at 3:33 PM on February 8, 2010

I'm sure the auto-mod would strike gold with every single link youtube post.
posted by birdherder at 3:42 PM on February 8, 2010 [1 favorite]

*turd* Also related: *shit*
posted by Rhomboid at 4:20 PM on February 8, 2010

I like this. It would be even cooler if it wasn't auto generated, but like tags, where stuff could be added as it came up.
posted by cjorgensen at 4:51 PM on February 8, 2010 [3 favorites]

By the way, that absence of sound you hear is us figuring out a way to make this work, not us silently sniggering behind our hands.

Why can't it be both?
posted by The Whelk at 5:59 PM on February 8, 2010 [1 favorite]

A good FPP already includes related posts (e.g., this one.) Trying to automate this would seem to take some editorial control away from the poster.

I disagree. Sometimes the connection between the original post and the suggested posts in AskMe is kind of tenuous and non-linear in a way that's really wonderful. I don't think it's the responsibility of the original poster to link us to four or five more semi-related MetaFilter posts.
posted by kate blank at 6:33 PM on February 8, 2010

By the way, that absence of sound you hear is us figuring out a way to make this work, not us silently sniggering behind our hands.

You can't use the same method you currently use for AskMe? That's kind of surprising.
posted by axiom at 7:01 PM on February 8, 2010

There's some preparation that has to happen where we do some magic to the tags [some sort of weighting thing, cortex understands it] to have a set that works well for matching purposes. Otherwise you get like five random music or art posts [since those are popular tags] and that's not that great.
posted by jessamyn (staff) at 7:02 PM on February 8, 2010

There's some preparation that has to happen where we do some magic to the tags [some sort of weighting thing, cortex understands it]

Ooh! Ooh! Is it like in Don't Eat the Pictures where Big Bird and Mr. Snuffleupagus help Sahu go to Osiris to get his heart weighed so he can become a star?

Because I really like the part where he becomes a star.
posted by ocherdraco at 8:57 PM on February 8, 2010

We are all made of stars ocherdraco, stars and space farts.
posted by The Whelk at 9:13 PM on February 8, 2010 [1 favorite]

I only believe what I can see. I grew up where no one but Big Bird saw Mr. Snuffleupagus, so I don't think he exists.
posted by cjorgensen at 9:35 PM on February 8, 2010

He only exists if you're Big Bird.


Are you Big Bird?
posted by The Whelk at 9:37 PM on February 8, 2010

I did get Big Bird's autograph. So I think that means I am not Big Bird. Well, unless I was signing my own photo. Then I would just be confused.
posted by cjorgensen at 9:41 PM on February 8, 2010

Big Bird is often confused.
posted by The Whelk at 9:49 PM on February 8, 2010

There's some preparation that has to happen where we do some magic to the tags [some sort of weighting thing, cortex understands it] to have a set that works well for matching purposes. Otherwise you get like five random music or art posts [since those are popular tags] and that's not that great

I seem to recall from messing with the Infodump that the most popular tag is "brokenlink", too, so something would definitely have to be done to exclude that, or sooner or later, many posts become related by that tag. Maybe something like excluding the top X% of tags by frequency of use, where X is adjusted empirically until the results are pretty?
posted by FishBike at 5:48 AM on February 9, 2010

Basically this is coming but I need to do a little groundwork for it and I was too distracted by music stuff yesterday to get it done. So, soon!

I seem to recall from messing with the Infodump that the most popular tag is "brokenlink", too, so something would definitely have to be done to exclude that, or sooner or later, many posts become related by that tag. Maybe something like excluding the top X% of tags by frequency of use, where X is adjusted empirically until the results are pretty?

I wrote a tag-weighting script a while back when we were setting this up for AskMe, that, if I remember right, tries to adjust for the overall volume of any given tag to avoid letting it steal the show, as it were, when calculating relative values. Essentially, the presence of a rare tag on a potentially Related post is worth a lot more than the presence of a common one.

With askme we had category information to use as well, but I think just tags will still make for interesting results. I need to generalize the script I wrote back in the day to work well independent of subsite (which means we could try and do this for metatalk and music in the long run too without having to do extra work on the weight-calculation front), and then we should be in business.
posted by cortex (staff) at 7:20 AM on February 9, 2010

Awesome possum.
posted by niles at 8:57 AM on February 9, 2010

I likes.
posted by cashman at 10:25 AM on February 9, 2010

yay, related posts are go.
posted by pb (staff) at 1:33 PM on February 9, 2010

Weeee!
posted by The Whelk at 1:36 PM on February 9, 2010

Nice!

Now the quest to find the most amusing results of this feature can begin.
posted by FishBike at 1:47 PM on February 9, 2010

Aside from sex, this is my favorite new thing today.
posted by shakespeherian at 1:47 PM on February 9, 2010

Neat. But I think the feature is undermined slightly by the fact that post titles on the blue are a lot more cryptic/jokey than those on the green. With a few exceptions it's nearly impossible to tell what the related posts are actually about without clicking through and reading them, unless you remember the title from having previously seen the thread. That's not to say it's not still a useful feature, nor am I suggesting that there's any kind of technical way to fix this -- displaying body excerpts would not be a good idea either.
posted by Rhomboid at 1:49 PM on February 9, 2010

With a few exceptions it's nearly impossible to tell what the related posts are actually about without clicking through and reading them, unless you remember the title from having previously seen the thread.

This is true for many posts, but may be more of a feature than a bug for the related posts list. Given that a primary use of that list is to wander through the site, discovering neat things you may have missed when they appeared originally, a curious post title could just add to the fun.
posted by FishBike at 2:16 PM on February 9, 2010

OH MY GOD I FINALLY HAVE A PONY!!! Thank you thank you thank you!!

I'm going to name it Pwny.
posted by not_on_display at 3:14 PM on February 9, 2010

This feature rocks. Thank you!!
posted by zarq at 3:43 PM on February 9, 2010

OH MY GOD I FINALLY HAVE A PONY!!

I wil love him and feed him and call him George Snowflake.
posted by The Whelk at 5:15 PM on February 9, 2010

a) What are the chances of installing this feature onto MeTa? Or onto other parts of the site? (Doing this to Music may be a fun exercise, but useful? mmmmmaybe?)

and

b) I wonder if there will be a rise in posts older than [$date] being favorited.
posted by not_on_display at 6:18 PM on February 9, 2010

On point (a), we're now generating the tag weighting for metatalk and music as well. We'll have to take a look and see what the results would actually be like for either. My first blush impression of the results on the blue is that it's maybe a bit less on-the-money than with the green (though that could just be me being accustomed to the feature on the green and not really re-evaluating how accurate it is in the first place), but I don't know really how much worse (or better?) the performance would be for the grey or for music.

On point (b), interesting question.
posted by cortex (staff) at 7:57 PM on February 9, 2010

It's definitely possible to find related posts for MeTa and Music, we just need to decide if we should. Some counter-arguments might be that some MeTa posts don't need more oxygen. And Music posts might not line up as well by tags. But we can discuss these, test how well they work for the sites, and see if it makes sense.
posted by pb (staff) at 9:44 PM on February 9, 2010

Yay! I've been sort of half expecting this feature to be there ever since it was added in AskMe, and now it is. Very cool. I think the cryptic nature of the post titles add to the fun - it makes sense that RRRARRRRGH *CLANK CLANK CLANK* is related to Vintage dinosaur books - and yet, they are so very different.
posted by yarrow at 9:09 AM on February 10, 2010

Even if Music posts (and I'm specifically talking about the songs, here; the other Music posts are pretty straightforward, I think) don't "line up well" I don't think there's any reason not to do it; I imagine it's mostly going to be used by people who are just exploring there.

If "related posts" are implemented for songs in Music, can the links be accompanied by one of the multi-song flash players? (Though that might screw up the notification that you get when you leave a song page and music is playing.)
posted by ocherdraco at 9:19 AM on February 10, 2010

I LOVE YOU FOR THIS!

Really, I do.
posted by Elsa at 7:16 PM on February 12, 2010

I just noticed. Nice.
posted by cashman at 6:06 PM on February 14, 2010