The Single Best Way I've Found to...

November 10, 2010 1:38 PM

The Single Best Method I've Found for... Given the perennial popularity and utility of "What's your favorite way to X" AskMe questions, and recipe questions, and frankly, the to-me fascinating quality of stuff like this, why not have a MeFi section devoted to lifehacks, recipes, and other time/money/environment/effort-saving shortcuts? The "Eat Me" Wiki, for example, is a nice compendium... but it looks like someone put some effort and time into it. Why not just have a section in which MeFi users can post lifehacks at random, so that users can just find these things via tags? Applying the voting system used for Projects might add to such a section's usefulness.
posted by darth_tedious to Feature Requests at 1:38 PM (14 comments total)

This sounds tedious.
posted by nomadicink at 1:40 PM on November 10, 2010

Why not just have a section in which MeFi users can post lifehacks at random

A compendium of compendiums on the wiki would be nice. There's really not a random aspect to anything here at MetaFilter and as much as I like serendipitous discovery for a lot of things, MeFi is a community blog where people talk about things or solve problems [or upload music or give/get jobs].

Put another way, there's already a blog called Lifehacker, and we have a wiki where people can post whatever they want. Having a "random" section on the site is an idea that gives me eye pain, though I'm aware that my reactions may not be average for this community.
posted by jessamyn (staff) at 1:42 PM on November 10, 2010 [1 favorite]

I agree with jessamyn: add a section to the wiki.

Or make your own site like this and post it to Projects.
posted by John Cohen at 1:45 PM on November 10, 2010

A compendium of compendiums on the wiki would be nice.

I can work on that.

Uh... slowly. :)
posted by zarq at 1:51 PM on November 10, 2010

The word "Lifehack" is so 2007. It really is not necessary as a synonym for "advice."
posted by fourcheesemac at 1:52 PM on November 10, 2010 [3 favorites]

Having a "random" section on the site is an idea that gives me eye pain, though I'm aware that my reactions may not be average for this community.

I would support this measure if the section were indeed actually posted at random, using whatever kind of algorithm would cause it to happen. So you can go to it for advice but you might get a recipe for jalapeno poppers or a love letter to Aaron Carter or photos of someone's dick or a browser-destroying page of several quicktime videos at once or a redirect to the Pennsylvania Turnpike's webpage or any one of millions of other things and there is absolutely no way to influence what the outcome is.
posted by FAMOUS MONSTER at 2:03 PM on November 10, 2010

Lord save us from Meta/b/ilter.
posted by cortex (staff) at 2:19 PM on November 10, 2010 [2 favorites]

if a Pavlovian reaction of cringing at even hearing the word is what it takes for people to stop using the word "random" to mean "unstructured," who among us can say which price is too high?

and just wait until you hear what i have in mind for the word "hack."
posted by FAMOUS MONSTER at 2:42 PM on November 10, 2010

A compendium of compendiums on the wiki would be nice.

I don't know if it is what you want, but the wiki does have the "AskMe Collections" category that lists the pages on the wiki that are themselves AskMe compendiums.
posted by RichardP at 4:59 PM on November 10, 2010 [1 favorite]

I made that! Yes, something like that. I'd love to see more collected AskMe pages on the wiki.
posted by jessamyn (staff) at 6:03 PM on November 10, 2010

Lord save us from Meta/b/ilter.

I'm pretty sure what saves us is the "In God We Trust" written on the back of the five dollar bill entry barrier...guess you could call that protection from the Lord?
posted by Phyltre at 8:23 PM on November 10, 2010

I want root access to my own brain.
posted by killdevil at 10:08 PM on November 10, 2010 [1 favorite]

I got yer LifeHack right here.
posted by Alvy Ampersand at 11:16 PM on November 10, 2010

Though I was in Ask, nearly flagged this as chatfilter.
posted by kellyblah at 8:52 AM on November 11, 2010