Counting Bug

December 13, 2010 8:26 PM

Minor Bug: Under Popular Favorites, it says that the Mystery Science Theater post had 90 favorites. If you click on the favorites, it lists 153. If I recall correctly, it was accurate yesterday. That's about it, and please​dont​let​this​be​a​discussion​about​favorites. Thanks!
posted by SpacemanStix to Bugs at 8:26 PM (16 comments total)

I'm guessing it just passed the seven day mark and the Popular Favorites page is only counting the last seven days.
posted by jessamyn (staff) at 8:29 PM on December 13, 2010 [1 favorite]

Yes, that page lists the number of favorites in the last seven days.
posted by pb (staff) at 8:31 PM on December 13, 2010

Well, sure enough. That makes sense.
posted by SpacemanStix at 8:40 PM on December 13, 2010

On some pages we explain it with an extra set of data in parenthesis like "53 favorites (176 total)" but I think we decided it'd be too much clutter on the already crowded popular favorites page. It's still a popular post even though it's old, and it's not super important that we list every favorite ever. If we did list just absolute favorites, the next question would be "why are the favorite counts not in order descending on the page" and then if we did them in order it would be "why doesn't the top most favorited item change more often" which is really why we do the 7-day window so things can move around more often.
posted by mathowie (staff) at 8:51 PM on December 13, 2010

It's metric.
posted by PareidoliaticBoy at 9:57 PM on December 13, 2010 [2 favorites]

Just repeat to yourself they're just favorites and I really should just relax....
posted by The Whelk at 9:57 PM on December 13, 2010 [4 favorites]

they're just favorites and I really should just relax....

Just favorites? I consider this to be the single most important issue facing metafilter.
posted by SpacemanStix at 10:03 PM on December 13, 2010

I'm glad we decided to have a talk about favorites. It's about time!
posted by scalefree at 10:15 PM on December 13, 2010

As pboy says above, they're just faveauxrittes.
posted by boo_radley at 10:37 PM on December 13, 2010

You, joseph gurl and 5 others like this.
posted by Joseph Gurl at 11:03 PM on December 13, 2010 [1 favorite]

Take your protein pill and put your helmet on.
posted by a humble nudibranch at 11:23 PM on December 13, 2010 [1 favorite]

Don't forget to check your ignition either. And may God's love be with you

And if it still doesn't work it's probably the carburetor
posted by MattMangels at 11:33 PM on December 13, 2010

Is it cold out there in space, Bowie? Do you need my jumper, Bowie?
posted by maxwelton at 4:15 AM on December 14, 2010

A quick survey of favourite phrasing. I probably didn't get everything, but it's close enough.

No favorites:
Front Page(s)
Archive
Recent Activity
Home > My Comments
Home > Recent Comments

"n favorite[s]":
Favorites from [user] (comments)
Comments in posts
Activity from [user] (comments)
Music charts
"n favorites[s] [(m in the last x)]" Home > Popular Favorites (24 hr, 7 day, all time)

"n user[s] marked this as a favorite":
Posts
Home > My Favorites
Favorites from [user] (posts)
Activity from [user] (posts)
Popular Favorites

"favorited n time[s], recently by a, b":
Activity from [user] (favorited)
My Contributions Saved as a Favorite

"n favorite[s]" seems to be the style for comments, "n user[s] marked this as a favorite" is more for posts. Home > Popular Favorites is an exception, probably to allow for it to have the "m in the last x" addition.

I think the issue is that Popular Favorites uses a phrase that everywhere else means "total favorites", but on a single page means "favorites in the last x". I think "n recent favorite[s]" or ""n user[s] recently marked this as a favorite" would work there to let folks know the difference.

(and thanks to semantic satiation, favorite now rhymes with cavorite for me.)
posted by zamboni at 7:25 AM on December 14, 2010 [1 favorite]

Ashes to Ashes, Flag to Favorites. We know The Whelk wears an iron braclet, chained down in the Meta, long time gone.
posted by The Whelk at 8:19 AM on December 14, 2010

Metafilter: Bhutan = blowjob
posted by dirigibleman at 9:45 AM on December 14, 2010