New Users Page April 13, 2011 3:46 PM Subscribe
Pony Request: Can we have a page that aggregates the user profiles for the 100 newest users (or the new users in the past month)?
I'm not sure what parameters would make the most sense, but recently I've found myself wondering who is joining MetaFilter. I'm not sure how to pay attention to the bleeding edge, and perhaps there's already a way, but I think it would be great to be able to click through to a page that would aggregate those new users.
I envision it working a bit like the User Sites page, but without being random.
I'm not sure what parameters would make the most sense, but recently I've found myself wondering who is joining MetaFilter. I'm not sure how to pay attention to the bleeding edge, and perhaps there's already a way, but I think it would be great to be able to click through to a page that would aggregate those new users.
I envision it working a bit like the User Sites page, but without being random.
As a sort of DIY version of this, you could download the usernames file from the Infodump and just look at the trailing end of it. Despite the name, it has user number and signup date in it too, one user per line, and is updated weekly.
posted by FishBike at 4:06 PM on April 13, 2011
posted by FishBike at 4:06 PM on April 13, 2011
there's a user sites page?
How many fucking subsites does this place have??
posted by Think_Long at 4:07 PM on April 13, 2011 [5 favorites]
How many fucking subsites does this place have??
posted by Think_Long at 4:07 PM on April 13, 2011 [5 favorites]
*whistle* Excuse me! Excuuuuuse me! Officer Hun with Puppet Patrol! I saw you just joined. Are you an authentic newwwwb? Oh reeeeeeally? Then why are your SOCKS on your HANDS?
posted by katillathehun at 4:08 PM on April 13, 2011 [3 favorites]
posted by katillathehun at 4:08 PM on April 13, 2011 [3 favorites]
How many fucking subsites does this place have??
So far, none. Matt hasn't even agreed to set up a dating subsite so it's a bit too soon to ask for casual encounters.
posted by special-k at 4:13 PM on April 13, 2011 [21 favorites]
So far, none. Matt hasn't even agreed to set up a dating subsite so it's a bit too soon to ask for casual encounters.
posted by special-k at 4:13 PM on April 13, 2011 [21 favorites]
As an aside, it's funny how every time I refresh the User Sites page I recognize a few users. Maybe more active users are more likely to post a URL on their profile?
posted by goodnewsfortheinsane at 4:17 PM on April 13, 2011
posted by goodnewsfortheinsane at 4:17 PM on April 13, 2011
Just to be clear, I would want the New Users page to link to the new user profiles, not to their personal sites. I was only using the other page as an example.
posted by OmieWise at 4:20 PM on April 13, 2011
posted by OmieWise at 4:20 PM on April 13, 2011
Freshmeat.metafilter.com
posted by dirtdirt at 4:22 PM on April 13, 2011 [5 favorites]
posted by dirtdirt at 4:22 PM on April 13, 2011 [5 favorites]
>Officer Hun with Puppet Patrol!
I would watch this show.
posted by LobsterMitten at 5:27 PM on April 13, 2011
I would watch this show.
posted by LobsterMitten at 5:27 PM on April 13, 2011
asl.metafilter.com
posted by Blazecock Pileon at 5:29 PM on April 13, 2011 [2 favorites]
posted by Blazecock Pileon at 5:29 PM on April 13, 2011 [2 favorites]
Once this brilliant pony is stabled and secure, can we get the n00bs lined up against a wall and blindfolded? Thanks.
Now, where's my Super Soaker?
posted by carsonb at 5:45 PM on April 13, 2011
Now, where's my Super Soaker?
posted by carsonb at 5:45 PM on April 13, 2011
I don't think it'd be proper for Metafilter to allow institutionalized hazing.
I mean, if we really want to turn new mefites into jaded husks like the rest of us, the best way would probably be Fazing.
posted by koeselitz at 6:09 PM on April 13, 2011 [3 favorites]
I mean, if we really want to turn new mefites into jaded husks like the rest of us, the best way would probably be Fazing.
posted by koeselitz at 6:09 PM on April 13, 2011 [3 favorites]
How about an small optional box somewhere in the region of the sidebar that displays a summary of the profile info for a random member who is among the newest 100 members? That would be cool - like a "meet a new member" box.
posted by Salvor Hardin at 6:11 PM on April 13, 2011
posted by Salvor Hardin at 6:11 PM on April 13, 2011
We should form a committee, bake pies and personally greet every new user with a brochure and information about the finer points of Metafilterism.
posted by Brandon Blatcher at 6:17 PM on April 13, 2011
posted by Brandon Blatcher at 6:17 PM on April 13, 2011
This has nothing to do with hazing, and is simply a request to aggregate publicly available data. There are sites, like MetaChat, that obscure member numbers. There are only new members there by self-report. We don't do that here, and anyone who wants to can hover over a members name and see their number, or click through to their profile and view exactly when they joined. In the presence of those kinds of specifics, I don't see how my request increases the likelihood that someone will be treated badly as a new member here.
posted by OmieWise at 6:20 PM on April 13, 2011
posted by OmieWise at 6:20 PM on April 13, 2011
This is a neat idea, and one that I never considered. I say we go to debate and fund an exploratory committee.
posted by nevercalm at 6:21 PM on April 13, 2011 [1 favorite]
posted by nevercalm at 6:21 PM on April 13, 2011 [1 favorite]
There are sites, like MetaChat, that obscure member numbers. There are only new members there by self-report.
There are semi-regular 'new members' threads there that specifically welcome newbies, though. A much, much smaller site makes this possible. I'm not sure that the volume of new members coming into MeFi makes anything to point them out particularly useable.
posted by dg at 6:24 PM on April 13, 2011
There are semi-regular 'new members' threads there that specifically welcome newbies, though. A much, much smaller site makes this possible. I'm not sure that the volume of new members coming into MeFi makes anything to point them out particularly useable.
posted by dg at 6:24 PM on April 13, 2011
Do I need to make a separate MeTa post about finding cool little pages here like the User Sites page, or can we just do it here? Or is it in the wiki, and I'm just a lazy asshole?
posted by nevercalm at 6:31 PM on April 13, 2011
posted by nevercalm at 6:31 PM on April 13, 2011
nevercalm: Do I need to make a separate MeTa post about finding cool little pages here like the User Sites page, or can we just do it here? Or is it in the wiki, and I'm just a lazy asshole?
Here's a list. You'll notice some don't work, including "Travel", which really just seems like a shitty way to tease us.
posted by gman at 6:43 PM on April 13, 2011
Here's a list. You'll notice some don't work, including "Travel", which really just seems like a shitty way to tease us.
posted by gman at 6:43 PM on April 13, 2011
Aggregation ended decades ago. Busing new users over to MeTa helped ease the transition.
posted by Brandon Blatcher at 6:48 PM on April 13, 2011
posted by Brandon Blatcher at 6:48 PM on April 13, 2011
I'm not sure that the volume of new members coming into MeFi makes anything to point them out particularly useable.
I don't know what this means.
I'm asking for something to satisfy my curiosity, just as the member site page does. I only used MetaChat to point out that we do not obfuscate information about when members join at MetaFilter. If we did, this request would substantially change the way this site handles new sign-ups. As it is, it doesn't.
posted by OmieWise at 6:52 PM on April 13, 2011
I don't know what this means.
I'm asking for something to satisfy my curiosity, just as the member site page does. I only used MetaChat to point out that we do not obfuscate information about when members join at MetaFilter. If we did, this request would substantially change the way this site handles new sign-ups. As it is, it doesn't.
posted by OmieWise at 6:52 PM on April 13, 2011
It's probably fairly simple to just make a thing that lists the last signed-up number and then you can go check them out. The thing that is tricky is to have a way to indicate which users have made a comment at all. We seem to have a lot of people that don't make it through the sign-up process [so the number is never used] and then some who make it through the process but don't ever participate and then a small number who stick around. I assume you'd like the last group, mostly.
posted by jessamyn (staff) at 7:26 PM on April 13, 2011
posted by jessamyn (staff) at 7:26 PM on April 13, 2011
You'll notice some don't work, including "Travel", which really just seems like a shitty way to tease us.
I am super curious as to what Travel did/was supposed to do? Anyone know?
posted by grapesaresour at 7:37 PM on April 13, 2011
I am super curious as to what Travel did/was supposed to do? Anyone know?
posted by grapesaresour at 7:37 PM on April 13, 2011
This has nothing to do with hazing, and is simply a request to aggregate publicly available data.
True, but there's a big difference between publicly available data and putting that data front and center so everyone can easily browse it. I'm hesitant because I think people on the "new users" page would feel scrutinized while they're on that list, and I'm not sure that's very welcoming. Maybe I'm reading it wrong and people would feel special and welcomed, but it's my hunch that folks might want to blend in to the background for a while until they get a feel for the place. I'd rather see people come out into the spotlight in other ways when they're ready.
Or is it in the wiki...
Yep, the wiki has you covered.
posted by pb (staff) at 7:37 PM on April 13, 2011 [6 favorites]
True, but there's a big difference between publicly available data and putting that data front and center so everyone can easily browse it. I'm hesitant because I think people on the "new users" page would feel scrutinized while they're on that list, and I'm not sure that's very welcoming. Maybe I'm reading it wrong and people would feel special and welcomed, but it's my hunch that folks might want to blend in to the background for a while until they get a feel for the place. I'd rather see people come out into the spotlight in other ways when they're ready.
Or is it in the wiki...
Yep, the wiki has you covered.
posted by pb (staff) at 7:37 PM on April 13, 2011 [6 favorites]
I am super curious as to what Travel did/was supposed to do? Anyone know?
We wanted to take the massive amount of knowledge accumulated in the Ask Travel category and organize everything by location. So you could browse to say, San Francisco, and easily find all previous questions related to San Francisco, broken down by new categories: Getting There, Getting Around, Where to Stay, Where to Eat, and What to Do. We added a new space for Trip Reports, so even if there wasn't a question about a particular location you could share your experiences with it.
The site ran for a while, but the traffic was at Ask and we couldn't find a great way to blend the two sites easily. We didn't want to remove travel questions completely from Ask, and we didn't want to add the new Travel features at Ask. So Travel eventually went away.
posted by pb (staff) at 7:45 PM on April 13, 2011 [1 favorite]
We wanted to take the massive amount of knowledge accumulated in the Ask Travel category and organize everything by location. So you could browse to say, San Francisco, and easily find all previous questions related to San Francisco, broken down by new categories: Getting There, Getting Around, Where to Stay, Where to Eat, and What to Do. We added a new space for Trip Reports, so even if there wasn't a question about a particular location you could share your experiences with it.
The site ran for a while, but the traffic was at Ask and we couldn't find a great way to blend the two sites easily. We didn't want to remove travel questions completely from Ask, and we didn't want to add the new Travel features at Ask. So Travel eventually went away.
posted by pb (staff) at 7:45 PM on April 13, 2011 [1 favorite]
Wow, I didn't think the Travel section would have been so involved. It's a great idea, but I can see how it would be hard to get enough traffic there.
Thanks pb!
posted by grapesaresour at 8:00 PM on April 13, 2011
Thanks pb!
posted by grapesaresour at 8:00 PM on April 13, 2011
So Travel eventually went away.
Say it aint true, pb.
I'll still wait for you, Travel.
posted by special-k at 8:07 PM on April 13, 2011 [1 favorite]
Say it aint true, pb.
I'll still wait for you, Travel.
posted by special-k at 8:07 PM on April 13, 2011 [1 favorite]
I've got the same general reservations that jessamyn and pb have put forward, but beyond that I can tell you about what you'd see on this list, and it's probably not particularly interesting:
- We'd cycle through 100 new accounts about once a week, give or take, of folks who actually completed the signup process.
- About 10% of them would be likely spammers who would be immediately contributing small amounts of crap of one sort or another, or who would be saying nothing and waiting for their opening.
- Another 10% of them would be future active commenters, who may or may not start commenting right away but over time will comment enough that if you're keeping an eye out in threads on the blue or the green you'll recognize them, at which point, hey, look, it's a new user to take notice of in any meaningful sense.
- The remaining 80% will be people who rarely or never comment, and in the case of the rarelies may not comment right away during the period they're on the list.
So it'd be a showcase for people who mostly haven't done anything yet or really engaged much with the site, and then they'd scroll off the list really quickly before they've really settled in, if they do in fact end up settling in.
Which, if someone wants to play around with an external script or tool that plays with this idea using the Infodump, I don't think it's a fundamentally terrible notion or anything like that. But I don't really see what value it would have that'd make it something we'd make an official page on the site.
posted by cortex (staff) at 10:42 PM on April 13, 2011 [1 favorite]
- We'd cycle through 100 new accounts about once a week, give or take, of folks who actually completed the signup process.
- About 10% of them would be likely spammers who would be immediately contributing small amounts of crap of one sort or another, or who would be saying nothing and waiting for their opening.
- Another 10% of them would be future active commenters, who may or may not start commenting right away but over time will comment enough that if you're keeping an eye out in threads on the blue or the green you'll recognize them, at which point, hey, look, it's a new user to take notice of in any meaningful sense.
- The remaining 80% will be people who rarely or never comment, and in the case of the rarelies may not comment right away during the period they're on the list.
So it'd be a showcase for people who mostly haven't done anything yet or really engaged much with the site, and then they'd scroll off the list really quickly before they've really settled in, if they do in fact end up settling in.
Which, if someone wants to play around with an external script or tool that plays with this idea using the Infodump, I don't think it's a fundamentally terrible notion or anything like that. But I don't really see what value it would have that'd make it something we'd make an official page on the site.
posted by cortex (staff) at 10:42 PM on April 13, 2011 [1 favorite]
There used to be a thing on the front page that I liked that was something like "our newest registered user is [Member Name]" or something? Or am I totally making that up? And an update of the total number of users?
I can understand not keeping the last bit, since so many new accounts don't complete the sign-up, but I liked being able to have a sense of what the newer user numbers were. Right now, I have no idea where they are, and I used to be able to tell right away by hovering over a user name if they were new(ish). Let it be recorded that this was a super power I used only for Good.
posted by taz at 11:44 PM on April 13, 2011
I can understand not keeping the last bit, since so many new accounts don't complete the sign-up, but I liked being able to have a sense of what the newer user numbers were. Right now, I have no idea where they are, and I used to be able to tell right away by hovering over a user name if they were new(ish). Let it be recorded that this was a super power I used only for Good.
posted by taz at 11:44 PM on April 13, 2011
There used to be a thing on the front page that I liked that was something like "our newest registered user is [Member Name]" or something?
It did on March 3, 2000 [459 members and growing]. Last seen June 28, 2005 [24797 members].
posted by unliteral at 12:10 AM on April 14, 2011
It did on March 3, 2000 [459 members and growing]. Last seen June 28, 2005 [24797 members].
posted by unliteral at 12:10 AM on April 14, 2011
"We should form a committee, bake pies and personally greet every new user with a brochure and information about the finer points of Metafilterism."
I can give everyone who joins a hug that goes on just a little too long.
posted by klangklangston at 12:23 AM on April 14, 2011 [2 favorites]
I can give everyone who joins a hug that goes on just a little too long.
posted by klangklangston at 12:23 AM on April 14, 2011 [2 favorites]
The answer is still no, klang.
posted by Blazecock Pileon at 12:30 AM on April 14, 2011 [5 favorites]
posted by Blazecock Pileon at 12:30 AM on April 14, 2011 [5 favorites]
I'm not sure that the volume of new members coming into MeFi makes anything to point them out particularly useable.
I don't know what this means.
Simply that the volume of new users is such that a page like this would consist of an ever-changing list of users to the point where you would have to be almost obsessively refreshing it to keep up. This doesn't seem like a particularly useful thing to have. In my humble opinion, of course.
My point in responding to your commentary around MeCha was not about showing or not showing user numbers, it was about the enormous difference in volume of new users. Over there, it's feasible and desirable to point out new members because it's a much smaller group. Over here, the environment is vastly different both in the volume of new users and in many other ways to the extent that pointing out new users would not be so desirable. Again, my opinion only.
posted by dg at 12:32 AM on April 14, 2011
I don't know what this means.
Simply that the volume of new users is such that a page like this would consist of an ever-changing list of users to the point where you would have to be almost obsessively refreshing it to keep up. This doesn't seem like a particularly useful thing to have. In my humble opinion, of course.
My point in responding to your commentary around MeCha was not about showing or not showing user numbers, it was about the enormous difference in volume of new users. Over there, it's feasible and desirable to point out new members because it's a much smaller group. Over here, the environment is vastly different both in the volume of new users and in many other ways to the extent that pointing out new users would not be so desirable. Again, my opinion only.
posted by dg at 12:32 AM on April 14, 2011
it's my hunch that folks might want to blend in to the background for a while until they get a feel for the place.
Fair enough. Thanks.
posted by OmieWise at 3:28 AM on April 14, 2011
Fair enough. Thanks.
posted by OmieWise at 3:28 AM on April 14, 2011
Interesting idea, but I thought everyone went through the gestation phase of visitor- lurker- commenter - poster - spouse - mod? Doesn't publicizing new members mean they'll be born premature?
posted by arcticseal at 7:05 AM on April 14, 2011
posted by arcticseal at 7:05 AM on April 14, 2011
I envision it working a bit like the User Sites page, but without being random.
Random? Every time I load this page, it has (Arsenio) Hall and (Warren) Oates's Twitter. 10 times so far, no misses.
posted by Nonsteroidal Anti-Inflammatory Drug at 7:41 AM on April 14, 2011
Random? Every time I load this page, it has (Arsenio) Hall and (Warren) Oates's Twitter. 10 times so far, no misses.
posted by Nonsteroidal Anti-Inflammatory Drug at 7:41 AM on April 14, 2011
And on further investigation, it's actually giving me the exact same data every time, just in a new random order.
posted by Nonsteroidal Anti-Inflammatory Drug at 7:48 AM on April 14, 2011
posted by Nonsteroidal Anti-Inflammatory Drug at 7:48 AM on April 14, 2011
So Travel eventually went away.
I hope it went to a nice farm; somewhere with fresh air and opportunities for plenty of exercise.
posted by octobersurprise at 8:50 AM on April 14, 2011 [2 favorites]
I hope it went to a nice farm; somewhere with fresh air and opportunities for plenty of exercise.
posted by octobersurprise at 8:50 AM on April 14, 2011 [2 favorites]
visitor- lurker- commenter - poster - spouse - mod
I'm still in phase 2.
posted by shakespeherian at 9:43 AM on April 14, 2011
I'm still in phase 2.
posted by shakespeherian at 9:43 AM on April 14, 2011
Congratulations shakespeherian, you're now at level 3. I figure some guy will now shout "fight(y)" in a Scott Pilgrim style.
posted by arcticseal at 4:13 PM on April 14, 2011
posted by arcticseal at 4:13 PM on April 14, 2011
Hi OmieWise-
I joined within the last month (after lurking moar than most), and I'll claim this as my N00b taunt.
[I think this is so much more personal than some ol' New Users Page..]
posted by benito.strauss at 3:25 PM on April 18, 2011
I joined within the last month (after lurking moar than most), and I'll claim this as my N00b taunt.
[I think this is so much more personal than some ol' New Users Page..]
posted by benito.strauss at 3:25 PM on April 18, 2011
You are not logged in, either login or create an account to post comments
posted by brundlefly at 4:03 PM on April 13, 2011