The seekrits of MehFee August 26, 2010 7:31 AM Subscribe

Where can I find a list of all the HTML-ish things I can do on MetaFilter?

For example, I'm aware of...

bold

italic

link

small

pre

block

blink

~~strike~~

So, ~~what else is available?~~

posted by slogger to MetaFilter-Related at 7:31 AM (94 comments total) 35 users marked this as a favorite

The Wiki has a nice article.
posted by jedicus at 7:37 AM on August 26, 2010 [2 favorites]

I'm pretty sure that's it. So, this is now the definitive list.

Oh wait, ^superscript works.
posted by jessamyn (staff) at 7:37 AM on August 26, 2010

^Superscript _Subscript
posted by schmod at 7:38 AM on August 26, 2010

Oh, and it'd be rare to have occasion to use them but the various list tags work, though only with the default styles (e.g., you can't get roman numerals in a numbered list).
posted by jedicus at 7:39 AM on August 26, 2010

lists
unordered

ordered
lists

posted by xqwzts at 7:42 AM on August 26, 2010

Don't forget the abbr tag. Hover over it to see what it does.
posted by FishBike at 7:43 AM on August 26, 2010

status:: supported
usefulness:: questionable

posted by jedicus at 7:44 AM on August 26, 2010

Fishbike!
posted by phunniemee at 7:45 AM on August 26, 2010

Never knew about this one!
posted by ThePinkSuperhero at 7:47 AM on August 26, 2010 [2 favorites]

Thanks for the link, jedicus. I had actually looked in the Wiki, but I wasn't sure what to search for!

xqwzts: what are the tags for ordered and unordered lists?
posted by slogger at 7:49 AM on August 26, 2010

abbr is useless on touch devices
posted by five fresh fish at 7:52 AM on August 26, 2010

I wonder if the center tag works?
posted by FishBike at 7:55 AM on August 26, 2010

posted by Eideteker at 7:55 AM on August 26, 2010

Okay, so subscript works but not domscript.
posted by Eideteker at 7:56 AM on August 26, 2010 [3 favorites]

And on askme.

The small used to drive me nuts.
posted by cjorgensen at 7:56 AM on August 26, 2010

Anchor tag works

You know, the <a> tag?
posted by Eideteker at 8:00 AM on August 26, 2010

The q tag lets you make angled quotation marks. At least on browsers that support it.
posted by jedicus at 8:01 AM on August 26, 2010

I totally messed up the local references, though.

<>
posted by Eideteker at 8:01 AM on August 26, 2010

You can't make  either. This is fun!

But it's MEE PHI. And I swear to god I just found and bought the Me Phi Me album Matt mentioned in an ancient podcast as a guideline on how to spell the name. 88¢ CD bins in the village FtW.
posted by Eideteker at 8:03 AM on August 26, 2010 [1 favorite]

There are a whole bunch of tags that are supported but don't get you anything that other, more common tags do, as far as I can tell.

The samp tag is another way to make non-proportional text.

The dfn tag gives you italics, apparently.

The kbd tag also gives non-proportional text.

Cite is more italics.

Acronym is like abbr

Code is more non-proportional text

Var is italics

Address is italics

posted by jedicus at 8:08 AM on August 26, 2010

I use

blockquote

a lot.

More frequently, italicized blockquote

posted by zarq at 8:18 AM on August 26, 2010

p^{º^{º^{º^{º^{º^º}}}}}

Don't mind me. Just blowing some bubbles.
posted by milarepa at 8:21 AM on August 26, 2010 [21 favorites]

°ree; entities and ∃ unicode.
posted by DU at 8:22 AM on August 26, 2010

Oh nice. °
posted by DU at 8:22 AM on August 26, 2010

Don't mind me. Just blowing some bubbles.

Didn't Bubbles work on the Bush campaign?
posted by inigo2 at 8:32 AM on August 26, 2010

Oh -- and does that whole backwards text thing work anymore?
posted by inigo2 at 8:32 AM on August 26, 2010

Didn't Bubbles work on the Bush campaign?

No, that was Reagan's 1984 re-election campaign.
posted by blucevalo at 8:40 AM on August 26, 2010

Ew. You're blowing bubbles from p.
posted by Babblesort at 8:46 AM on August 26, 2010 [1 favorite]

MEE-fie
posted by katillathehun at 8:59 AM on August 26, 2010 [1 favorite]

The <uranus> tag is allowed through the filter, but it may not render properly on earth.
posted by and hosted from Uranus at 9:01 AM on August 26, 2010

Is this where we try to find holes in the code and then everyone has a grand old time until pb fixes it and we're all sad again?
posted by backseatpilot at 9:03 AM on August 26, 2010

Meh-fee
posted by Mister_A at 9:13 AM on August 26, 2010 [3 favorites]

Not an actual tag and more like a hacked variation, but the Doctor Who discussion threads have adopted this thing for spoiler discussions.
posted by Phire at 9:16 AM on August 26, 2010

How do you make that really convoluted, weird, Lovecraftian-esque text?
posted by griphus at 9:19 AM on August 26, 2010

I'm afraid you don't anymore.
posted by Mister_A at 9:22 AM on August 26, 2010

Do you mean Z҉A҉L҉G҉O̚̕̚?
posted by jessamyn (staff) at 9:22 AM on August 26, 2010 [7 favorites]

Gaah! He comes!
posted by Mister_A at 9:27 AM on August 26, 2010 [1 favorite]

Don't forget the mod-only IMG tag.

RIP
posted by blue_beetle at 9:39 AM on August 26, 2010

Well, thanks a lot, jessamyn, now I'm insane.
posted by griphus at 9:50 AM on August 26, 2010 [2 favorites]

inigo2: "Didn't Bubbles work on the Bush campaign?"

Nope. Too busy selling hats.
posted by l33tpolicywonk at 9:50 AM on August 26, 2010 [2 favorites]

I'm also a fan of the

^{^{^{^{^{^{^{^{^{* * * *         * * *      * * * * *    *       *        *        * * * * *    * * * *      * * * * *    *       *    * * * * *    
  *      *    *       *        *        * *   * *      *   *          *        *       *        *        *       *    * * * * *
  *      *    *       *        *        *   *   *    *       *        *        *       *        *          *   *      * * * * *
  *      *    *       *        *        *       *    * * * * *        *        * * * *          *            *        * * * * *
  *      *    *       *        *        *       *    *       *        *        *   *            *          *   *      * * * * *
  *      *    *       *        *        *       *    *       *        *        *     *          *        *       *    * * * * *
* * * *         * * *          *        *       *    *       *        *        *       *    * * * * *    *       *    * * * * *}}}}}}}}}

tag
posted by FishBike at 9:51 AM on August 26, 2010 [21 favorites]

What's the deal with the img tag? It was disabled just as I got here. Could people just not discipline themselves with it?

<img>thisiswhywecanthavenicethings.jpg</img>
posted by Trochanter at 9:53 AM on August 26, 2010

What's the deal with the img tag? It was disabled just as I got here. Could people just not discipline themselves with it?

Snarky answer: yes.

Resembling the actual answer: it could be used to make the browser of everyone reading a comment hit any arbitrary URL with an HTTP GET request. Although that's supposed to be just for retrieving information, sometimes just issuing a GET request to the URL of a script will have side effects, like favoriting a comment or sending $1,000,000 to FishBike.

They could (and I believe did) fix the issue within MetaFilter itself by making scripts with side effects only work with an HTTP POST request (which the IMG tag doesn't generate), but they couldn't fix this for every web site on the web. So the IMG tag had to be disabled to prevent malicious use of it.
posted by FishBike at 9:58 AM on August 26, 2010

I can't believe we didn't fix every site on the web. Not very ambitious.
posted by Mister_A at 10:06 AM on August 26, 2010 [2 favorites]

I would like to nominate FishBike as MeFite of the Year.
posted by slogger at 10:22 AM on August 26, 2010

Which year?
posted by Babblesort at 10:28 AM on August 26, 2010

But it's MEE PHI. And I swear to god I just found and bought the Me Phi Me album Matt mentioned in an ancient podcast as a guideline on how to spell the name. 88¢ CD bins in the village FtW.

I have that album! I got it for free when I was reviewing music for the local newspaper back in college. Which podcast episode is this?
posted by lore at 10:33 AM on August 26, 2010

What's the deal with the img tag? It was disabled just as I got here. Could people just not discipline themselves with it?

Using only the power of the IMG tag, I completely and totally derailed this thread, singlehandedly and entirely unintentionally.
posted by Gator at 10:45 AM on August 26, 2010

So the IMG tag had to be disabled to prevent malicious use of it.

This still boggles my mind, considering the forums out there that are FULL of malicious users that allow img tags with seemingly no problems to the other users. For instance 4chan or SomethingAwful.
posted by smackfu at 11:04 AM on August 26, 2010

You don't say MEET-uh FILE-ter

You don't say Science FIKE-tion either, and yet that's still abbreviated "Sci-Fi."
posted by SpiffyRob at 11:05 AM on August 26, 2010 [7 favorites]

other tags people may not be aware of:

-gat sdrawkcab eht

-the petulant taaaaaag-uh. *stomps foot*

-ThE WiL^d _anD ^Wa_ckY t^AG

-Knock Knock. Who's There? The Knockknock tag.

-Many years later, as he faced the firing squad, One Hundred Years of Solitag was to remember that distant afternoon when his father took him to discover ice.

-It's the lowbrow english accent tag, innit?

-e
e
cum
min
gs
t
ag

-Every shaver
Now can snore
Six more minutes
Than before
By using
Burma-Tag

-Dundee Tag, mate.

-----------------Laser Tag------------X

-Meow there's a SuperTroopers Tag

-Wink Tag [may not work in some browsers]

-Hello! My name is InigoMontoya tag. You killed my father. Prepare to die.
posted by shmegegge at 11:07 AM on August 26, 2010 [8 favorites]

Whoa - that's a serious lore overload right there.

I miss brunching shuttlecocks.
posted by m@f at 11:09 AM on August 26, 2010

I miss brunching shuttlecocks.

Me too. Especially the Self Made Critic.
posted by zarq at 11:23 AM on August 26, 2010

TREBEK...
posted by Askr at 11:26 AM on August 26, 2010

some of these are "broken" in Chrome; blink, small, Zalgo, and the formatting for Dot Matrix (it just looks like morse code).

the bubbles thing looks Ok in Chrome but is off in IE.
posted by Challahtronix at 11:29 AM on August 26, 2010

some of these are "broken" in Chrome; blink, small, Zalgo, and the formatting for Dot Matrix (it just looks like morse code).

the bubbles thing looks Ok in Chrome but is off in IE.

It looks like Chrome doesn't reduce the line height when the line contains only superscripted text, so DOTMATRIX comes out with way too much space between rows of dots.

Meanwhile IE doesn't seem to keep reducing the font size for each additional nested SUP tag, so DOTMATRIX comes out huge but otherwise OK, and the bubbles things looks wrong.

It's bad enough that web developers have to test their pages in many different browsers. I guess now we should preview our comments in multiple browses, too.
posted by FishBike at 11:48 AM on August 26, 2010 [1 favorite]

bring back the marquee tag!
posted by Justinian at 11:58 AM on August 26, 2010 [1 favorite]

The <gullible> tag still works.
posted by qvantamon at 12:25 PM on August 26, 2010 [3 favorites]

Really?
posted by Aizkolari at 12:37 PM on August 26, 2010 [3 favorites]

Damn.

_{Every time...}
posted by Aizkolari at 12:38 PM on August 26, 2010

Also working but not mentioned:

Unordered lists
Ordered lists

Code is an alternative to pre
posted by davejay at 12:43 PM on August 26, 2010

Er, that should have been:

Unordered lists

Ordered lists

posted by davejay at 12:44 PM on August 26, 2010

0^{1^{2^{3^4⁵67}8}9}1
posted by Babblesort at 12:46 PM on August 26, 2010

Don't forget the uʍop ǝpısdn tag.
posted by Henrik at 12:48 PM on August 26, 2010 [1 favorite]

Sci-Fih.
posted by blue_beetle at 1:16 PM on August 26, 2010

Dbl-Fehture
pitcher show
posted by Babblesort at 1:24 PM on August 26, 2010 [1 favorite]

> Meh-fee

The "what he said" tag.
posted by languagehat at 1:30 PM on August 26, 2010 [1 favorite]

For instance 4chan or SomethingAwful.

4chan does not let you use the image tag. They allow you to upload images, which are hosted on their server temporarily. You have no control of the URL, so it's impossible to direct a browser to GET an arbitrary location.

Personally I think all the security nonsense about the img tag was trumped up, because metafilter was fixed within days and if other sites are broken that's their problem. But I've come to appreciate that when we did have image tags threads could get out of control real fast, so I think it's good that it remains disabled. I just hate it that people continue to use bullshit FUD to fearmonger.
posted by Rhomboid at 1:30 PM on August 26, 2010

But I've come to appreciate that when we did have image tags threads could get out of control real fast

I remember ceiling cats. Lots of ceiling cats.
posted by Trochanter at 2:03 PM on August 26, 2010

There is no "meh" in ME-fi, you knownothing chunder buckets.^✝

^✝ I mean, the content of the site is frequently nothing but "meh", that goes without saying. But in all seriousness, to say "meh-fee" is wrongheaded beyond accounting. END OF COMMUNICATION^*

^* Ok well I just want to emphasize that if you pronounce it in any way except "Me-fy", you are a bad person and all of the persons associated with your upbringing are--or were--also cruelly deficient. Not that you can pick your family.
posted by everichon at 2:10 PM on August 26, 2010 [1 favorite]

<phone>
<freeze>
<price>
posted by lekvar at 2:11 PM on August 26, 2010

Lemme try something:

<awesome>quin</awesome>

*checks self*

Nope. I'm still mundane, they obviously haven't implemented my suggested changes.
posted by quin at 2:32 PM on August 26, 2010

Don't close the tag.
posted by Trochanter at 2:51 PM on August 26, 2010 [1 favorite]

He said awsomely.
posted by Trochanter at 2:51 PM on August 26, 2010 [1 favorite]

<cameras />
posted by blue_beetle at 3:05 PM on August 26, 2010

</scene>
posted by Sparx at 4:23 PM on August 26, 2010 [1 favorite]

I will take a couple existing phenomena - air quotes (expression based on the typographical symbol) and "OMG" (expression exported directly from an abbreviation for computer communication), and extrapolate that in the near future the kids in your lawn will be talking to each other like "It was really cool, I mean [air angle brackets]ee-emm really [air angle brackets]slash-ee-emm cool!"
posted by qvantamon at 5:45 PM on August 26, 2010

FishBike: "I'm also a fan of the
^{^{^{^{^{^{^{^{^{* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *}}}}}}}}}
ta"

FishBike did you code that by hand or is there a page out there to generate it.
posted by Mitheral at 5:49 PM on August 26, 2010

I did that by hand. Is that a bad sign?
posted by FishBike at 5:53 PM on August 26, 2010

               Underline                non-links.

                                            and spaces

posted by unliteral at 5:57 PM on August 26, 2010

Ehhh, I'm really glad images don't work any more, and hopefully will never be reinstated.
posted by codacorolla at 6:45 PM on August 26, 2010

inigo2: Oh -- and does that whole backwards text thing work anymore

˙ʇnoqɐ buıʞןɐʇ ǝɹ,noʎ ʇɐɥʍ ɐǝpı ou ǝʌɐɥ I
posted by hangashore at 7:06 PM on August 26, 2010

Ehhh, I'm really glad images don't work any more, and hopefully will never be reinstated.

Yeah, I wasn't lamenting it's removal. The site looks better clean, you betcha.
posted by Trochanter at 7:23 PM on August 26, 2010

That's faking it using unicode characters that happen to resemble upside-down letters. The real backwards effect can be achieved by inserting U+202E which causes everything on the page after it to be displayed in reverse, unless that's been filtered.

test (try selecting): ‮Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipisicing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. ‭

I guess it still works.‭
posted by Rhomboid at 7:38 PM on August 26, 2010 [1 favorite]

迷Φ
or
みΦ
posted by msittig at 8:05 PM on August 26, 2010

Now, Jedicus, we use those elements for their semantics, not for whatever typographic variation your particular browser uses.
posted by joeclark at 8:09 PM on August 26, 2010

Yeah, but honestly on Metafilter the unusual tags are much more likely to get used for user agent display effects rather than semantic markup.
posted by jedicus at 8:43 PM on August 26, 2010

I did that by hand. Is that a bad sign?

I've been reading it as "dominatrix" all day. Is that a bad sign?
posted by Trochanter at 9:05 PM on August 26, 2010 [1 favorite]

xqwzts: what are the tags for ordered and unordered lists?

Regular html:
<ul> <li> unorderedlistitem </li> </ul>

<ol> <li> orderedlistitem </li> </ol>

some of these are "broken" in Chrome [...] the formatting for Dot Matrix (it just looks like morse code).

Phew. I thought I was the only one here that can't translate from morse code on the fly.
posted by xqwzts at 1:28 AM on August 27, 2010

"I did that by hand. Is that a bad sign?"

Nope, more impressive.
posted by Mitheral at 7:53 AM on August 27, 2010

The DIY is strong with this one.
posted by Babblesort at 7:57 AM on August 27, 2010

It's already been touched on somewhat - and they are not tags, per se - but after some work by pb, most of the HTML entities work, and appear in preview. (I find them particularly useful in answering woodworking questions in AskMeFi). For example:

½ ½
¾ ¾
″ ″
′ ′
× ×

I also like to use <cite>, <q>, <acronym> and <abbr>.
posted by Bora Horza Gobuchul at 8:42 AM on August 27, 2010

FishBike did you code that by hand or is there a page out there to generate it.
posted by Mitheral at 6:49 PM on August 26 [+] [!]

Nothing shows up in Chrome in OS X when Fishbike does this.

Is there a single page that shows the actual tags that work for Meh-Fie ? Like a PDF file?
posted by mecran01 at 6:57 AM on August 28, 2010

Mecran: zoom in a lot. On iPhone Safari, it initially looks like nothing, too.ought be the same w/Chrome.
posted by five fresh fish at 7:25 AM on August 28, 2010

« Older And the Meffy goes to... | Who axed insanely minor feature #4638-B3 from the... Newer »

You are not logged in, either login or create an account to post comments

MetaTalk

The seekrits of MehFee August 26, 2010 7:31 AM Subscribe

Tags

Share