It was very sweet while it lasted

January 6, 2012 12:55 AM

You're amazing, fun and made my life richer - and that's why it pains me to break up with you, favorites.

There's certainly nothing wrong with you - we are a great match in a lot of ways - you're resourceful, helped me keep track of all the great stuff that's written here on Mefi, and allowed me to show my appreciation towards other mefites.

But I'm not feeling strongly enough about this, and I know that it's important to me to have that strong connection by now. What I'm feeling is that I don't add posts and comments as favorites because I expect to get back to them some day - like you do with browser bookmarks - but because I want to upvote them; I just want to thank the poster or acknowledge their effort, or tell the world I think that the subject matter is important. But at the same time, I have been using you as a substitute for bookmarks and it's clear to me that this doesn't work and that it has been wrong of me to use you in such a fashion.

You deserve real feeling and enthusiasm and for whatever reason I can't deliver it right now.

I don't want to be in your way and prevent you experiencing the fabulous life you will soon be living when you are with someone who is ready for you right now, and knowing that's not me I think its' best to free you up.

I really really really really struggled with this decision because I like you and don't want to hurt you. I didn't make it lightly but I feel sure it's the right thing.

Do you have any questions for me?

posted by Foci for Analysis to MetaFilter-Related at 12:55 AM (191 comments total)

I don't understand. You're stopping favoriting things?
posted by aubilenon at 12:58 AM on January 6, 2012 [10 favorites]

I heard Foci was seeing +1 and Like behind [add to favourites]' back. [add to favourites] should probably DTMFA.
posted by roofus at 1:07 AM on January 6, 2012 [25 favorites]

I knew I had ham-in-turkey-fisted the metaphor too far.

Basically this pony is about having more nuanced favorites so that we can have some of them as bookmarks (i.e. references) and others as upvotes ("great work on the fpp" | "beautifully written"), etc, because I believe this is how many of us use favorites and it's not really supported by mefi.

I know this pony has been courted before, but I would like to welcome her into our midst once more.
posted by Foci for Analysis at 1:27 AM on January 6, 2012 [5 favorites]

Do you have any questions for me?

You asking me, or favorites? If me, let's start with "Can every even integer greater than two be written as the sum of two primes?"

MeMail me with the answer. Don't post it here.
posted by Philosopher Dirtbike at 1:27 AM on January 6, 2012 [11 favorites]

So it's not Favourites, it's you? Hope you're not dumping them by SMS.
posted by arcticseal at 1:28 AM on January 6, 2012 [3 favorites]

there's still bitter disagreement about having favorites in the first place (i'm in favor!) so i don't think branching them further is going to find a lot of traction.
posted by nadawi at 1:29 AM on January 6, 2012 [3 favorites]

I was keeping this for the perfect moment, now seems to be the time.
posted by infini at 1:32 AM on January 6, 2012 [8 favorites]

pony
posted by nadawi at 1:35 AM on January 6, 2012 [5 favorites]

Gaze on the spouse contact ye mighty and despair.
posted by Kid Charlemagne at 1:43 AM on January 6, 2012 [2 favorites]

Yeah, the post isn't clear at all that you are asking for something specifically rather than just announcing that you won't be using favorites any more. It sounds like you want to be able to select from different favorite "types," is that right?
posted by taz (staff) at 1:49 AM on January 6, 2012 [7 favorites]

It sounds like you want to be able to select from different favorite "types," is that right?

taz, that's right. The way it works now, I can't find important fpps/comments because most of my favorites are in fact upvotes. Anyone else that has the same problem?
posted by Foci for Analysis at 1:55 AM on January 6, 2012 [18 favorites]

This is a pony I would feed sugar cubes too.
posted by arcticseal at 1:58 AM on January 6, 2012 [4 favorites]

to. I too would feed this pony sugar cubes.
posted by arcticseal at 2:00 AM on January 6, 2012 [3 favorites]

Two cubes to feed this pony would you?
posted by le morte de bea arthur at 2:04 AM on January 6, 2012 [6 favorites]

I guess we can be open about it now, favorites has been cheating on your with me.
posted by furiousxgeorge at 2:07 AM on January 6, 2012 [3 favorites]

*you
posted by furiousxgeorge at 2:07 AM on January 6, 2012 [1 favorite]

You know you can search within favorites, right? (You probably do, but just checking.)

I'll let the other guys speak to this specifically (when they wake up) in terms of the possibilities and/or problems of something like this, but I save specific posts and comments that I know I will want to refer to because they are useful, etc. on Diigo because I can tag them with all the pertinent info I'll need to find them.
posted by taz (staff) at 2:11 AM on January 6, 2012 [4 favorites]

Basically this pony is about having more nuanced favorites so that we can have some of them as bookmarks (i.e. references) and others as upvotes ("great work on the fpp" | "beautifully written"), etc, because I believe this is how many of us use favorites and it's not really supported by mefi.

The problem is that the line between 'upvote' and 'bookmark' is thick and wiggly. I use mine, as many do, for both, either, or neither (sometimes I like to acknowledge a jab: "touche"). Splitting the favorites into two categories in the main UI would add clutter without clarity.

However, I don't see a reason why this couldn't be implemented behind a curtain. The public tally could show the sum of the two categories, which would only be visibly demarcated in a user's favorites activity [http://www.metafilter.com/favorites/userid], a comment's favorites page [http://metatalk.metafilter.com/favorited/6/958589], or a post's favorites page [metatalk.metafilter.com/favorited/5/21348].
posted by troll at 2:16 AM on January 6, 2012 [2 favorites]

Welcome to the fold.
posted by Eideteker at 2:22 AM on January 6, 2012 [2 favorites]

You know you can search within favorites, right? (You probably do, but just checking.)

Yup, knew about it and never use it because going through all favorites is too bothersome. There's also another issue that searching doesn't address, i.e. being able to tell people why we have favoriting something.

Anywho, I keep thinking about removing all my favorites so that I can start over from scratch, using favorites as bookmarks to posts/comments I need to reference in the future but even I see the OCD in this...
posted by Foci for Analysis at 2:27 AM on January 6, 2012 [1 favorite]

So, why don't you just bookmark stuff that you want to bookmark? Isn't that what the arrow thing was introduced for?
posted by veedubya at 2:34 AM on January 6, 2012 [5 favorites]

I guess we can be open about it now, favorites has been cheating on your with me.

Nah, it's all good. We had a pretty open and accepting relationship and I was always told about the others. By the way, if you caught something last year, that was probably me. Sorry about that.
posted by Foci for Analysis at 2:38 AM on January 6, 2012 [1 favorite]

veedubya: "So, why don't you just bookmark stuff that you want to bookmark? Isn't that what the arrow thing was introduced for?"

If Foci is like me, that's way too many bookmarks.

I would support separating favorites into bookmarks and something like +1.
posted by IndigoRain at 2:39 AM on January 6, 2012 [4 favorites]

If Foci is like me, that's way too many bookmarks.

Sorry, not trying to be facetious, but I don't understand that. Either way, you'd end up with the same amount of links, wouldn't you? Plus, with bookmarks, you could actually annotate the links.
posted by veedubya at 2:41 AM on January 6, 2012 [4 favorites]

So, why don't you just bookmark stuff that you want to bookmark? Isn't that what the arrow thing was introduced for?

You mean browser bookmarks? My rituals surrounding browser bookmarks are so complicated and tiresome these days that I reserve them for The Most Important Stuff, which is why I only have ca 50 bookmarks. Also, I would like to have my Mefi stuff on Mefi.

Preview: I realize I sound like a special lunatic snowflake, but what can I say, I have Strong Opinions (TM) about organizing things.
posted by Foci for Analysis at 2:47 AM on January 6, 2012 [5 favorites]

Well, we all have our little quirks, so I can't fault you there.

However, speaking as a developer: If a user came to me and asked me to modify a feature to do such-and-such, and I pointed out that there is already a mechanism that does exactly what they want, and they then tell me that that isn't how they want to do things so why don't I go ahead and modify that feature? I wouldn't do it out of spite.

But, that's one of my little quirks.
posted by veedubya at 2:54 AM on January 6, 2012 [11 favorites]

Haha! I see furiousxgeorge has favorited this post and every comment in it, which is awesome because I thought of doing something similar (a site-wide favoriting rampage) and it raises a good point. Many comments go without a favorite, so a just single user could diminish their utility by sowing a thread like Johnny Appleseed. A handful of users could cause inflation. A small but determined group could crash the market!

Who's with me?! Vive la révolution préféré!
posted by troll at 2:55 AM on January 6, 2012 [13 favorites]

Anyone who uses favourites for any reason should be crumpled up into a ball and thrown at teacher's head when her back is turned. Thonk! - the sound of the crumpled individual impacting against the pedagogue's skull. Grumpf! - the sound of said educationalist's antipathy. Whack, whack, whack! - the sound of the corporal punishment meted out to each member of the class for the disrespectful infraction and/or for laughing at the same. Guffaw! - the sound of said laughter, which sound occurred between sounds #2 and #3, obviously.

My point here is that favourites are yet ANOTHER tactic in the moderators' war on conversation. They have implemented a system whereby clicking a small punctuation mark is seen as preferable to MeFites actually talking to one another, to thank one another for their contributions or to remind themselves of interesting information. Here is how conversations used to work in the days before favourites and the moder-Reich:

USER A: Goodfellows, herewith attached a link most propitious, the clicking of which shall educate and entertain thee and jiggle thy very shanks with rapture.

USER B: By Minerva's glass suppository! You have undone us all, good Lady, with joy unlimited. Perchance that I might garland you with high tokens of my affection?

USER C: Hear Hear! - and such a link is so worthy that I would be reminded of it each year on St. Ethelbert's feastday. Wouldst be so kind as to send such annual correspondence to my domicile, address herewith supplied?

USER A: Forsooth, User B, I modestly accept your medallions of thanks; and dear User C, I shall make it a habit to remind you of each glorious anniversary. God Save the Queen!

USERS B and C: Yea, and Rule Britannia!

This was how user interaction USED to be, before the monsterous mods made MeFi maddening. I think we can all agree it was far better and can I just point out that we have an election coming up this year? Please vote #1 quidnunc kid and end the reign of the conversation-despising moderators FOREVER. Thanks.
posted by the quidnunc kid at 2:57 AM on January 6, 2012 [59 favorites]

With all of the ways that we, as individuals, can utilize the plethora of services and techniques already available to us to archive lists of internet pages, why would it be the responsibility of a site to create this system (specific to the site) for you?

Use bookmarks, use Instapaper, use post-its, use whatever strikes your fancy, because anything created here would only create an endless stream of people wanting it different...
posted by HuronBob at 2:57 AM on January 6, 2012 [3 favorites]

So you want Matt/pb to implement changes to the site because you don't want to change your bookmarking habits?
posted by daniel_charms at 2:58 AM on January 6, 2012 [3 favorites]

Let's do this again every time someone decides to set their profile preference to 'Hide Favorites'.
posted by ceribus peribus at 3:01 AM on January 6, 2012 [1 favorite]

would you all please [+] my use a few comments above of the correctly spelled word "plethora"? Thank you.
posted by HuronBob at 3:03 AM on January 6, 2012 [1 favorite]

So you want Matt/pb to implement changes to the site because you don't want to change your bookmarking habits?

This has to be a fallacy, no? (So you want Matt/pb to implement changes to the site because you don't want to change x?).
posted by Foci for Analysis at 3:04 AM on January 6, 2012 [1 favorite]

This has to be a fallacy, no?

You could probably call it a straw man argument, since you never explicitly said any of this.
posted by daniel_charms at 3:08 AM on January 6, 2012 [2 favorites]

God damn troll and furiousxgeorge, stop favouriting everything, it's bloody annoying.
posted by daniel_charms at 3:10 AM on January 6, 2012 [8 favorites]

I would not like to think that HuronBob would tell us we has a plethora, and then find out that HuronBob has no idea what it means to have a plethora.
posted by Errant at 3:24 AM on January 6, 2012 [3 favorites]

I would also not like to think that I would tell you I know how to conjugate a verb, and then find out that I has even less of an idea how to conjugate a verb.
posted by Errant at 3:25 AM on January 6, 2012 [5 favorites]

It's a sweater!
posted by Burhanistan at 3:26 AM on January 6, 2012 [2 favorites]

I was going to say that favorites are great just the way they are and there's no need to change anything, but then I had this thought. How about adding a feature to the favorites tab that would allow you to categorize and sort your favorites? Would something like this be feasible?
posted by daniel_charms at 3:28 AM on January 6, 2012 [2 favorites]

"we has haz a plethora" FTFY
posted by HuronBob at 3:41 AM on January 6, 2012 [3 favorites]

What are you asking for? Tags for favorites? Discrete types of favorites? Seems to me that any sort of category or tagging for favorites could/would be used for shenanigans if it was public facing (you favorites my comment with the tag 'dickweed'). If it is private, then it isnt as useful, even for non-shenanigans, and is more easily provided through third party means.
posted by dirtdirt at 3:54 AM on January 6, 2012 [1 favorite]

Would something like this be feasible?

Probably only after many long discussions about what to put in the tabs and why, and then many more discussions and decisions as to why the first discussions were wrong ...

It's kind of a crack in the dam, really. One of the things I really like about the site is the absence of the creeping featuritis and cruft that affects so many other places.
posted by carter at 3:58 AM on January 6, 2012 [2 favorites]

I think you should ask tehloki what he thinks.
posted by adamvasco at 4:01 AM on January 6, 2012 [3 favorites]

You could try a pleathera, which is like a plethora but without the animal cruelty.
posted by GenjiandProust at 4:11 AM on January 6, 2012 [9 favorites]

My impression from past discussions is that the mods are in general not thrilled about the very existence of the favoriting feature, so enhancements to it are going to be unlikely.
posted by gubo at 4:26 AM on January 6, 2012 [1 favorite]

Probably only after many long discussions about what to put in the tabs and why

Three categories should be enough for everyone - Bookmarks, Misc and Other.
posted by daniel_charms at 4:29 AM on January 6, 2012 [1 favorite]

('Bookmarks' would be for things you want to, well, bookmark; 'Misc' would be everything else and 'Other' would be for stunty stuff like what troll is doing in this thread)
posted by daniel_charms at 4:42 AM on January 6, 2012 [1 favorite]

stunty stuff like what troll is doing in this thread

Which one?
posted by infini at 4:45 AM on January 6, 2012 [1 favorite]

Favoriting every single comment.
posted by daniel_charms at 4:48 AM on January 6, 2012 [1 favorite]

And here I thought my comment was outstanding, thanks trolls
posted by infini at 4:55 AM on January 6, 2012 [1 favorite]

Just because you can, doesn't mean you should.
posted by carter at 5:00 AM on January 6, 2012 [1 favorite]

I think the mods have pretty much said, time and time again, that they're not going to alter the way the very divisive favoriting system works.
posted by crunchland at 5:00 AM on January 6, 2012 [1 favorite]

This was how user interaction USED to be, before the monsterous mods made MeFi maddening.

Wait, wait - are we still talking favorites, or is this the old "we shouldn't use algorithms pb found in the Borellus translation of the Pnakotic Manuscripts, no matter how much it can alter polynomial time" argument again?

It's only a little whispering in your ear at night, for crying out loud, get over it.
posted by Slap*Happy at 5:02 AM on January 6, 2012 [4 favorites]

I really wish you'd left the cute to the side and clearly laid out your pony request. As it is, you haven't really said what it is that you want, how you'd like to see it implemented, and why this change needs to be made server-side.
posted by OmieWise at 5:06 AM on January 6, 2012 [1 favorite]

I mean, there are many many (many) ways for you to bookmark things on this site that are under your own control. Why are those methods inadequate? Why does the site need to be changed to accommodate your needs?
posted by OmieWise at 5:07 AM on January 6, 2012 [1 favorite]

I would like to suggest that people stop riffing on Miko's original comment. It's turning into a tired cliche.
posted by Brandon Blatcher at 5:20 AM on January 6, 2012 [2 favorites]

préféré

Three accents in one word?!?! What kind of language is this?
posted by Salvor Hardin at 5:33 AM on January 6, 2012 [2 favorites]

The Internets never forget
posted by infini at 5:40 AM on January 6, 2012 [1 favorite]

I like receiving favorites.
posted by Trurl at 5:40 AM on January 6, 2012 [6 favorites]

Let me see if I can't prototype something.
posted by Foci for Analysis at 5:41 AM on January 6, 2012 [1 favorite]

I agree. I mean, the post was annoying and not clear. But I agree with the idea that I like to use favorites as (1) gold stars and (2) bookmarks.
posted by J. Wilson at 5:45 AM on January 6, 2012 [2 favorites]

Would it be difficult for somebody to create a userscript – similar to the one that allows you to leave notes on user profiles – that is a symbol, when clicked, opens up a 10-character dialog box, allowing one to effectively add a 'tag' to a comment? And leave favorites untouched.

Or maybe this 10-char tag feature only applies to things I've already favorited, on the 'my favorites' page. Whatever. But I would find this handy, as an add-on. But not messing with the perfectly functional favorites feature.
posted by iamkimiam at 5:48 AM on January 6, 2012 [1 favorite]

Sorry, to be clear, the symbol would appear next to each comment, like the various other userscripts' symbols/words do ("quote", the library book, the scroll/jump double-carats, contact contributions, etc.).
posted by iamkimiam at 5:51 AM on January 6, 2012 [1 favorite]

I'm not sure what would be the point of an upvoting system if the upvotes weren't clearly marked as such (say, "3 favorites and 8 upvotes" under a comment, or whatever); otherwise its function is already filled by "flag as fantastic."

And I think that a system where upvotes are clearly marked is a terrible idea. I realize a lot of people are using favorites that way right now, but the negotiable purpose of favorites means that that aspect of it doesn't get brought up as much as it probably could. I think a clearly marked upvoting system would have a pretty terrible effect on conversation.
posted by FAMOUS MONSTER at 6:02 AM on January 6, 2012 [1 favorite]

Do you have any questions for me?

Yes. Next time if you've got a feature request, could you just ask for it?

And yeah, no, we're unlikely to make any changes to the favoriting system so it's sort of up to you to find some ways to make it work for you within the constraints of how it already functions. They're very greasemonkeyable. They are turn on and offable. I use the one/some/many favorites scripts so I can see them in general terms and not in specific terms. And people are always going to use them in ways you disagree with.
posted by jessamyn (staff) at 6:04 AM on January 6, 2012 [6 favorites]

I never jump on the pony train (come on ride the train it's a pony ride it WOOWOOO) but I agree that a way to separate posts saved for later would be a good thing. Currently I don't even attempt to look through my favorites because it would be too overwhelming.
posted by Lieber Frau at 6:09 AM on January 6, 2012 [5 favorites]

If you use favourites to signal aggreement, or as bookmarks, or if you believe they are terribly wrong, or if you have no opinion, or if you like your ponies cryptic, please favourite this comment!!!
posted by le morte de bea arthur at 6:11 AM on January 6, 2012 [3 favorites]

I like the userscript idea. Most browsers support persistent client-side data storage so technically an userscript should work and be much easier to implement than changing mefi.

Anyways, thanks for the discussion, everyone.
posted by Foci for Analysis at 6:14 AM on January 6, 2012 [1 favorite]

I try to put stuff I really, really want to save and be able to find easily in my profile.

I am not very good at remembering to do this, and then remembering that that's what I've done, but that's one way of wrangling it.
posted by rtha at 6:19 AM on January 6, 2012 [2 favorites]

can you go back to the implied turkey fisting for a moment?
posted by edgeways at 6:27 AM on January 6, 2012 [1 favorite]

can you go back to the implied turkey fisting for a moment?

Turkeys cannot give consent. Please do not do this.
posted by GenjiandProust at 6:31 AM on January 6, 2012 [2 favorites]

White Whine: A Collection of First-World Problems
posted by netbros at 6:39 AM on January 6, 2012 [1 favorite]

Please vote #1 quidnunc kid and end the reign

Your frothy mix of eloquence and wry cynicism gets all six of my votes!
posted by Devils Rancher at 6:45 AM on January 6, 2012 [2 favorites]

Meh.
posted by St. Alia of the Bunnies at 6:46 AM on January 6, 2012 [1 favorite]

They're very greasemonkeyable. They are turn on and offable.

Why does this sound like the opening lines to a Mary Poppins-esque song about favorites and their uses?
posted by griphus at 6:48 AM on January 6, 2012 [4 favorites]

They're very greasemonkeyable. They are turn on and offable

Hark ye to the tale of King Offa,
Whose riches filled Mercia's coffers:
He greased up his monkey
On t' advice of a flunky
And thus turned-on, got off. So don't scoffa.
posted by the quidnunc kid at 6:48 AM on January 6, 2012 [3 favorites]

Anyone who uses favourites for any reason should be crumpled up into a ball and thrown at teacher's head when her back is turned. Thonk! - the sound of the crumpled individual impacting against the pedagogue's skull. Grumpf! - the sound of said educationalist's antipathy. Whack, whack, whack! - the sound of the corporal punishment meted out to each member of the class for the disrespectful infraction and/or for laughing at the same. Guffaw! - the sound of said laughter, which sound occurred between sounds #2 and #3, obviously.

My point here is that favourites are yet ANOTHER tactic in the moderators' war on conversation. They have implemented a system whereby clicking a small punctuation mark is seen as preferable to MeFites actually talking to one another, to thank one another for their contributions or to remind themselves of interesting information. Here is how conversations used to work in the days before favourites and the moder-Reich:

USER A: Goodfellows, herewith attached a link most propitious, the clicking of which shall educate and entertain thee and jiggle thy very shanks with rapture.

USER B: By Minerva's glass suppository! You have undone us all, good Lady, with joy unlimited. Perchance that I might garland you with high tokens of my affection?

USER C: Hear Hear! - and such a link is so worthy that I would be reminded of it each year on St. Ethelbert's feastday. Wouldst be so kind as to send such annual correspondence to my domicile, address herewith supplied?

USER A: Forsooth, User B, I modestly accept your medallions of thanks; and dear User C, I shall make it a habit to remind you of each glorious anniversary. God Save the Queen!

USERS B and C: Yea, and Rule Britannia!

This was how user interaction USED to be, before the monsterous mods made MeFi maddening. I think we can all agree it was far better and can I just point out that we have an election coming up this year? Please vote #1 quidnunc kid and end the reign of the conversation-despising moderators FOREVER. Thanks.

This.
posted by Crabby Appleton at 6:48 AM on January 6, 2012 [1 favorite]

Turkeys cannot give consent.

Yet. Some of us are hard at work developing a better, smarter, more self-aware turkey that will someday be able to provide companionship, intelligent conversation, and, yes, consent.

Someday . . .
posted by Copronymus at 6:53 AM on January 6, 2012 [1 favorite]

If you are not happy with your upvotes being mixed in with your bookmarks and don't want to use something external to bookmark...

couldn't you just stop using favorites to "upvote"? Would anything of value be lost?
posted by utsutsu at 7:19 AM on January 6, 2012 [3 favorites]

1- Make a folder on your desktop called "Read Later."

2- When you find something you want to read later, drag the link from your browser into the Read Later folder.

3- Read later.

4- Delete link after reading. (Optional)
posted by The Deej at 7:26 AM on January 6, 2012 [2 favorites]

I could be wrong, but I'm guessing it's highly unlikely the mods will ever make changes to the favorites system, considering what happened in 2009.

Favorites are the third rail of Mefite politics.
posted by zarq at 7:33 AM on January 6, 2012 [4 favorites]

This is a pretty good idea, but man was this the most ass-backwards way to approach it.
posted by Rodrigo Lamaitre at 7:35 AM on January 6, 2012 [1 favorite]

See, I read the FPP here as a call to *boycott* favorites, which is an interesting idea and one that would in no way be disruptive to the site, since it's a matter of personal choice whether (and how) one uses favorites. If a significant minority of MeFites wants to have democratic influence on the culture of favoriting around here, a concerted effort to use them in one manner or another exclusively, or limit or even forswear their use would be an interesting experiment.

It might merit the occasional mention here in MeTa, but unless some favorite-mongers get upset that their favorite counts aren't rising fast enough, I can't see how it's an oppositional idea (so perhaps the word "boycott" is too strong).

There's a plate of beans for ya.
posted by spitbull at 7:38 AM on January 6, 2012 [1 favorite]

Foci, you have spell everything out very literally and tediously for the brilliant MetaFilter audience. Any sort of playfulness that requires thought on any level other than the most superficial is lost on most of them.
posted by Crabby Appleton at 7:41 AM on January 6, 2012 [3 favorites]

I actually think having the ambiguity behind whether favorites are endorsement or just taking note is a good thing. Sites with up (and down-) votes can develop "popularity contest" problems, which can be ... fraught. Plausible deniability can be a good thing.
posted by Karmakaze at 7:43 AM on January 6, 2012 [3 favorites]

I read the FPP as Foci's announcement that he was deleting all his favorites, and to let all his favoritees know why their favorite counts had dropped precipitously.

Guess I was wrong.
posted by slogger at 7:46 AM on January 6, 2012 [2 favorites]

Favorites are the third rail of Mefite politics.

Five bucks says you can't pee on favorites from here.
posted by griphus at 7:47 AM on January 6, 2012 [5 favorites]

Downvoted.
posted by Decani at 7:50 AM on January 6, 2012 [1 favorite]

WHAT
THE
FUCK
FOCI?
posted by joe lisboa at 7:53 AM on January 6, 2012 [1 favorite]

Any sort of playfulness that requires thought on any level other than the most superficial is lost on most of them.

*golf clap*
posted by joe lisboa at 7:54 AM on January 6, 2012 [2 favorites]

It's them's the problem. If it weren't for them, us would be happy.
posted by Devils Rancher at 8:09 AM on January 6, 2012 [1 favorite]

This is my issue. I tried to use favorites as bookmarks but I felt like a dick for not handing out more favorites. Especially because I love all my favorites so much so it seemed hypocritical.
posted by Ad hominem at 8:12 AM on January 6, 2012 [1 favorite]

You could get a second account, "Favorites for Analysis", and use that for the bookmarking type of favorites.
posted by XMLicious at 8:19 AM on January 6, 2012 [5 favorites]

Five bucks says you can't pee on favorites from here.

Uh huh.
posted by zarq at 8:19 AM on January 6, 2012 [1 favorite]

This is my issue. I tried to use favorites as bookmarks but I felt like a dick for not handing out more favorites.

I favorite very little, almost solely as bookmarks of a sort, and I mostly get by by declining to feel like a dick about it because there's no reason to feel like a dick about it.

Basically, I love this place, I love the stuff people post, I love the comments people write: I am overcome regularly by all the good stuff here. And I try to express that by participating positively and being a part of threads where I feel like I can contribute something. Favoriting stuff isn't part of my personal process there, and that's fine; it is for some folks, and that's totally fine too.

Favorites are just a tool in the kit here, and a minor one; folks should use them how they want to use them, not how they feel like they're supposed to, because there's not really much in the way of "supposed to" about it.
posted by cortex (staff) at 8:34 AM on January 6, 2012 [3 favorites]

Damn it! This thread is why my favorites count dropped by 3 since last night. Now I have to adjust the drip!
posted by carsonb at 8:37 AM on January 6, 2012 [1 favorite]

What cortex doesn't tell you is that he's also been using favorites to archive William Carlos Williams poetry parodies.
posted by griphus at 8:37 AM on January 6, 2012

That's just me doing research for Jofus' blog.
posted by cortex (staff) at 8:42 AM on January 6, 2012

Foci, you have spell everything out very literally and tediously for the brilliant MetaFilter audience.

Right, because a sales pitch is a perfect time for a monologue.
posted by Rodrigo Lamaitre at 8:46 AM on January 6, 2012

Favorites are just a tool in the kit here --- Yeah. I've always thought of them as a monkey wrench.
posted by crunchland at 8:47 AM on January 6, 2012 [1 favorite]

this is just to say
I have upvoted
the comments
that were in
the thread

and which
you were probably
saving
for later

Forgive me
they were insightful
so clever
and so quick.
posted by gauche at 8:55 AM on January 6, 2012 [2 favorites]

I think enough people use favorites as a way to upvote a comment that it's disingenuous to act like that's not their de facto function at this point.
posted by prefpara at 8:57 AM on January 6, 2012 [2 favorites]

My ASL teacher pointed out that feedback is very important in conversation. In face-to-face spoken English, for example, we've got head nods, and lots of different "hmmm"s and "un-hunh"s. The great thing about these is that they give feedback without interrupting the other person.

In ASL (if I'm remembering it rightly), you can use the "Y" hand shape, and lightly bounce it just below the main conversation space to achieve the same thing.

We all know that short written comments miss out on a lot of the tools we can use in face to face conversations. So I like to use 'Favorites' as a form of non-interrupting positive feedback.
posted by benito.strauss at 9:04 AM on January 6, 2012 [11 favorites]

This is how I imagine a character from Portlandia would make a pony request.
posted by Brocktoon at 9:24 AM on January 6, 2012 [1 favorite]

My ASL teacher pointed out that feedback is very important in conversation.

Yes, without favorites/upvotes/replies it often feels like you are talking to yourself. The idea that people sometimes go off the deep end or resort to other types of behaviour that the community frowns upon to garner favorites is not the case IMO.It is not a need for favorites, but a need for any type of interaction at all. Favorites are just what we have here, besides direct response in the thread. The favorite system is not a bad thing, that prompts people to do bad things, it is a way to acknowledge that someone heard you. If we didn't have that there would be much more strident behaviour as people try to provoke in thread replies.

I could be wrong though.
posted by Ad hominem at 9:25 AM on January 6, 2012 [3 favorites]

Like others have said, people like feedback so they don't feel like they are shouting past each other in a crowded room. Some forums allow for easy quotation, that's one means of feedback. Others have a true voting mechanism (i.e. up- and downvotes). Favorites are a little different:

In the short term favorites are a voting system, a shorthand "yes" to an individual comment or post. In the long term favorites are a weighing system, a way of measuring an individual's nebulous contributions to the online community. Favorites from other people are a way of saying "I was here". Without that interaction I wouldn't spend so much time here.
posted by 2bucksplus at 9:27 AM on January 6, 2012

Dear people who would feed ponies sugar cubes: please stop. “high sugar feeds” can be detrimental to horses, because they:

• disrupt normal digestion,
• exacerbate certain medical conditions, and
• lead to serious complications like colic and laminitis – two serious conditions that can strike any pony.

If you really want a pony, learn how to feed and care for them, don't think that you can just buy boxes of sugar cubes and keep your pony healthy. Ponies are not hummingbirds.
posted by filthy light thief at 9:29 AM on January 6, 2012 [2 favorites]

"Greasemonkeyable" is now the word for the day. Use it wherever possible.

Bonus points for getting a non-mefite to say it.
posted by Tell Me No Lies at 9:31 AM on January 6, 2012 [1 favorite]

Yeah, I also consider Favorites to be the equivalent of people laughing at or nodding to what you are saying at a party. I can only imagine what a social gathering would be like if everyone just stopped making non-verbal responses to what other people were saying.
posted by griphus at 9:33 AM on January 6, 2012 [1 favorite]

I need one more favorite to have exactly 1,000.
posted by Curious Artificer at 9:35 AM on January 6, 2012 [3 favorites]

I like favorites as an indexing tool that helps me find stuff I want to return to for posts and comments. However, as noob, I have few enough of these to date that this mode is still useful. I appreciate that may be less so in the future.

I want to say I'm really, really glad that the favoriting system here does not influence moderation, a la Slashdot. I hate that system.
posted by zomg at 9:36 AM on January 6, 2012

There you go, CA. Enjoy it while you can. I just hit 25,000 and I'm pretty sure I hate myself.
posted by griphus at 9:36 AM on January 6, 2012

Thanks. No more, please!
posted by Curious Artificer at 9:40 AM on January 6, 2012 [6 favorites]

Goddamn, 25k. I know they don't want to foster competition, but they really should have a VIP room for some peeps up in here.
posted by Ad hominem at 9:40 AM on January 6, 2012 [1 favorite]

Yeah, you go into the VIP room and it's just blank white walls and two dudes there wearing t-shirts that say "WORKPLACE PRODUCTIVITY" and "ACTUAL SOCIAL LIFE" and they're both looking real disappointed.
posted by griphus at 9:44 AM on January 6, 2012 [6 favorites]

In the corner is a pile of unfolded clean laundry and a heap of unopened mail.
posted by elizardbits at 9:47 AM on January 6, 2012 [3 favorites]

I like favorites as an indexing tool that helps me find stuff I want to return to for posts and comments.

I use favorites that way, too. Although initially I also used them to indicate agreement, support, "that made me laugh", "this is the right answer", and a whole bunch of other things.

I found the latter set of uses really interfered with my use as a way of tracking stuff I will want to go back and look at again, and had to go through them all and remove all the ones that were not acting as bookmarks. Which I felt sort of bad about doing, because I know I like the positive feedback implied by favorites and I assume many other people do as well.

There's some overlap between those uses, though. I still favorite things that make a point I agree with and make it so well I'm likely to want to come back and refer to it or quote it. Or jokes that are so funny I know I'll want to read them again and maybe send them to people when an opportunity arises. Or answers that are not only the right answer, but answer a question I suspect I'm going to have in the future.

So for me, probably a little "make this favorite a bookmark too" checkbox would probably be a nice thing to have.
posted by FishBike at 9:49 AM on January 6, 2012 [3 favorites]

Raindrops on roses and whiskers on kittens, bright copper kettles and warm woolen mittens, brown paper packages tied up with strings, these are a few of my favorite things.

I currently have 6,747 other favorite things on MetaFilter, but they don't fit into the song so well.
posted by filthy light thief at 10:04 AM on January 6, 2012 [2 favorites]

Goddamn, 25k. I know they don't want to foster competition, but they really should have a VIP room for some peeps up in here.

Reddit has the 'lounge' ( r/lounge) for 'Gold' members. When I was one, it was full of people making monocle jokes and not much else.

Fark has TotalFark. When I was one, it was an . . . interesting and active community. But much different in tone than MeFi.

I think with the $5 sign-up fee, MeFi is already the VIP room of teh internetz.
posted by the man of twists and turns at 10:05 AM on January 6, 2012

I need one less favorite to be at 4900 even. Quick - someone unfavorite me!
posted by Think_Long at 10:11 AM on January 6, 2012

Pony request: Show favourites activity : precise -- should show all those dirty indian givers who take back favourites that they might have awarded at some point in the past.

That way, I can nurture a grudge against said people indefinitely, automatically taking the opposite side to them in any debate.
posted by PeterMcDermott at 10:16 AM on January 6, 2012 [4 favorites]

dirty indian givers

I took a shower before giving you a favourite
posted by infini at 10:18 AM on January 6, 2012 [6 favorites]

I think with the $5 sign-up fee, MeFi is already the VIP room of teh internetz.

I had no idea I was already a member of Entertainment 720. Another of my great ambitions unwittingly fulfilled.
posted by Copronymus at 10:21 AM on January 6, 2012 [3 favorites]

FishBike: So for me, probably a little "make this favorite a bookmark too" checkbox would probably be a nice thing to have.

Yeah, I totally get why the admins don't want to muck about with the favorites system any more; and I think favorites are very useful and nicely flexible as they are so I don't really want to change them to "upvotes" or whatever.

But it would be pretty nice to have a little tab of bookmarks in my MeFi profile itself, so I could access them from other places/other computers (a Greasemonkey script only assists at the home computer). Being able to mark a favorite as a bookmark as well so they could be in a separate little place that's easier to shuffle through, as a private thing only I could see, that would definitely be useful.

Watching the favorited-by-others number drop is a wee bit ouchie. Obviously it's not personal, but it's still kinda sad!
posted by flex at 10:24 AM on January 6, 2012 [1 favorite]

I took a shower before giving you a favourite

But I have no problem seeing the fragrant favourite allocators. It's those stinky, odious favourite removers I need to be able to identify and punish.
posted by PeterMcDermott at 10:25 AM on January 6, 2012

dirty indian givers

Really?
posted by kamikazegopher at 10:36 AM on January 6, 2012 [10 favorites]

My ASL teacher pointed out that feedback is very important in conversation. In face-to-face spoken English, for example, we've got head nods, and lots of different "hmmm"s and "un-hunh"s.

In Japanese, aizuchi. (Which turned into a household verb: "to zooch". For example, "We didn't seem to click at first until I realized I wasn't zooching nearly enough, so I dialed up the 'ah?'s and 'uh-huh…'s up and it went better from there.")
posted by Lexica at 10:39 AM on January 6, 2012 [1 favorite]

Because I use 'Favorite' conversationally, I can't use it for "come back to this later". Since I follow stuff in my Recent Activity page, I've sometimes resorted to making a small comment in a thread so it will show up in Recent Activity.

I feel a little bad about this, sort of like the person standing on the edge of a conversation who pipes up to say "Boy, this sure is a great conversation", and would be really well served by a "Put Post in Recent Activity" button.
posted by benito.strauss at 10:40 AM on January 6, 2012 [2 favorites]

In Japanese, aizuchi.

soo desu ...........
posted by benito.strauss at 10:42 AM on January 6, 2012

Many comments go without a favorite

Can we keep it that way, please? No "favorite everything" rampages? I love to hear myself talk, and so it's good for my sense of humility to be frequently reminded that often entire groups of people unanimously believe that what I have to say is so devoid of wit and wisdom that it isn't worth a single mouse click that might be interpreted as approval.

I mean, theoretically, in the long run, that's good for my sense of humility. I haven't yet ruled out the hypothesis that Metafilter is just full of philistines.
posted by roystgnr at 10:43 AM on January 6, 2012 [7 favorites]

just being able to tag favorites with some version of [useful/interesting/agree/haha/blackmail] would go far in resolving the issues some users have with getting the most out of their bank of favorites and, thusly, the site.

it doesn't necessarily require forking the entire function, just focusing it.

for analysis.

or something like that.
posted by batmonkey at 10:45 AM on January 6, 2012 [1 favorite]

Favorites appeal to the worst parts of my brain, both as a contributor and reader. This post has inspired me to turn them off entirely. Thanks, Foci.
posted by swift at 10:47 AM on January 6, 2012

However, I think Foci's request might be partially accommodated by adding a "Show only my favorites" option in the profile, no?
posted by swift at 10:53 AM on January 6, 2012

Do you have any questions for me?

Why not just stop using favorites?
posted by Ironmouth at 10:55 AM on January 6, 2012 [1 favorite]

pete

pete

pete

I just gave you a bunch of favorites pete.

Guess what I'm gonna do now?
posted by Brandon Blatcher at 10:59 AM on January 6, 2012 [1 favorite]

I would love it if the "favorites" section of the user pages had a named span around them in the source code so I could write a script to hide them completely.
posted by crunchland at 11:00 AM on January 6, 2012

[+] You hit your favorite limit for the day. [!]

WHAT??!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!
posted by troll at 11:04 AM on January 6, 2012 [8 favorites]

Yeah, there's a daily limit (100?).
posted by Brandon Blatcher at 11:08 AM on January 6, 2012

YES!!!
posted by daniel_charms at 11:09 AM on January 6, 2012

Welcome to the Centurion's Club. It's kind of like the Mile High Club except that it's just you and tehloki hanging around in a poorly lit room, twitching.
posted by cortex (staff) at 11:10 AM on January 6, 2012 [19 favorites]

MY PLAN, IT WORKED!

My plan to post silly comments to this thread until troll runs out of favorites, that is. Other plans still pending.
posted by daniel_charms at 11:11 AM on January 6, 2012 [2 favorites]

Here's the reasoning for the limit, as written by Jessamyn [STAFF]:

The limit is 100 a day right now. That's 36,500 per year. It's asily tweakable and could easily be 250 or whatever. As it is this will affect maybe one or two users and stop the "let's have a Meta thread where everyone favorites everyone" crapfloods. I'm sorry you were one of those people tehloki.

The issue wasn't so much that people favorite too much but that for people who pay attention to what of theirs has been favorited, their "favorited" queue filled up with a bunch of noise if they participated in certain MeTa threads. Also we had people setting up sock puppets to do nothing but favorite every single post or comment they looked at. This alone led to people sending "wtf is up with that guy" emails and the like and we wanted to find a way to minimize that. This was the first solution we hit on and it's been a few days.

posted by Brandon Blatcher at 11:14 AM on January 6, 2012

Sometimes, I'll just go into a thread and favorite comments at random.

Because I can.
posted by spinifex23 at 11:14 AM on January 6, 2012 [2 favorites]

My plan to post silly comments to this thread until troll runs out of favorites, that is. Other plans still pending.

Don't worry, I'll have more tomorrow.
posted by furiousxgeorge at 11:25 AM on January 6, 2012 [1 favorite]

That favourites problem being articulated by Jessamyn (how indiscrimate use devalues the concept) is the problem with tumblr spam. And there's no way to turn them off (like i do favourites here) or a decent spam filter. GRAR
posted by infini at 11:29 AM on January 6, 2012

Well, I'd favorite your informative comment, Brandon—and your hilarious joke, cortex—but, well, you know.

daniel_charms, however, deserves flags—many flags.

I wonder if there's a daily limit...

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posted by troll at 11:30 AM on January 6, 2012 [2 favorites]

I've kinda been going by - you favorite the threads if you want to bookmark and the comments if you want to upvote.
posted by vegartanipla at 11:35 AM on January 6, 2012 [6 favorites]

troll, are you trying to live by the maxm "flag-give and flag-get?"
posted by GenjiandProust at 11:45 AM on January 6, 2012

I just gave you a bunch of favorites pete.

You think I didn't *know* what was gonna happen as soon as I saw those damn favourites appearing?
posted by PeterMcDermott at 11:57 AM on January 6, 2012 [1 favorite]

Aww, that's so sweet of you.
posted by daniel_charms at 12:11 PM on January 6, 2012

It's very difficult to determine how people are using favorites, and in particular if you can divide them into bookmarkers vs. upvoters.

There are about 12000 users who have made more than 50 comments on the site. Chopping out the ones who have never favorited anything you end up with about 9000 users in the pool.

Making the VERY LARGE ASSUMPTION that number of comments is a rough estimation of site usage I ran some numbers measuring per-user the number of favorites vs. number of comments.

The resulting graph is logarithmic in shape with a relatively flat rise up to 2/1 followed by a sharp upswing all the way up to 500/1. The upswing begins at 7000 users.

The methodology on this is really really poor. A user with 50,000 comments and 50,000 favorites shows up with a 1/1 ratio despite the fact that they're likely an upvoter. Fortunately very few of these outliers exist.

If backed into a corner I would give an estimate that the split is roughly 2000 upvoters vs. 7000 bookmarkers.

Suggestions for a more sane methodology would be gratefully received.
posted by Tell Me No Lies at 12:32 PM on January 6, 2012

I think it is spelled "favourites" now.
posted by Meatbomb at 12:34 PM on January 6, 2012 [1 favorite]

Damn furriners.
posted by Tell Me No Lies at 12:35 PM on January 6, 2012 [1 favorite]

how long you been waiting to do that, troll? You shouldn't have rushed into it, it looks like crap.
posted by HuronBob at 12:42 PM on January 6, 2012

^flagged
posted by troll at 12:56 PM on January 6, 2012

This has to be a fallacy, no?

More a sort of fallacy symbol.

But sometimes, Anna, a cigar is just a cigar.
 
posted by Herodios at 1:17 PM on January 6, 2012

I can't help but think that adding second-level organization to favorites (splitting them or tagging them) would add a greater weight to them in an institutional kind of way for many people. In addition to essentially doubling (greasemonkey scripts and individual settings aside) the informational weight that other folks' reactions would have on a subject. (56 favorites might breakdown to 5 bookmarks and 51 yeaaaaah!s or 40 bookmarks and 11 yeaaaahs! In either case, you are now spending twice as much space on other people's reactions to each comment/post.) Isn't the vagueness of the favorites number and meaning something of a bonus?

How much importance a person places on favorites and how they use that [+] today is highly relative. You don't know why they favorited it (bookmark/heck yeah/save to rebut later/ha ha/etc) which tamps down somewhat on the citation of favorites as upvotes as part of the debate that can breakout today. Sure, we still sometimes see "X's comment got 56 favorites? You people are [insert insult here, often bovine in nature] and this place [insert usual complaints]." but the awareness that a favorite isn't always a favorite helps reduce that. I think that's a benefit.
posted by julen at 1:18 PM on January 6, 2012

julen - since there's no need to have the # of bookmarks for a particular post public, it doesn't necessarily double the space requirements.
posted by Jpfed at 1:38 PM on January 6, 2012 [1 favorite]

Interesting. So X Bookmarks and X Favorites (which I would interpret as "X things people find interesting" and "X things people liked" would essentially be a private/public split? And instead of the vagueness of today's favorites (they could be bookmarks or favorites or both), you'd end up with just essentially "X people liked this" instead of "X people saved a link to this".

It's sorta like Facebook, then.
posted by julen at 1:58 PM on January 6, 2012

I use favorites one of two ways: some are used as sweet little kisses to show approbation, love, admiration, perhaps even lust. Other are used as sharp pointy little jabs to signify disapproval, mockery, scorn or revulsion.

I think it would be helpful if pb could craft two little icons that I could choose from to more clearly distinguish which is which, because dammitall, when I look back I sometimes can't remember which is supposed to be a kissy kissy kiss and which is a stabby stabby stab.
posted by madamjujujive at 2:27 PM on January 6, 2012 [1 favorite]

I feel like I should be uncomfortable with favorites used to indicate, well, favor for all the same reasons as are often mentioned by those who dislike them. It's certainly true that I have never found upvoting to be helpful, and instead usually hurtful, elsewhere.

But for some reason favorites have never bothered me here. In fact, it sort of disappoints me to learn that more people use them as neutral bookmarks than as marks of favor.

Thinking about it more carefully, I suppose that the only real difference that explains my inconsistency is that this is one of the very few communities where I actually respect and care about what it "thinks" and likes and dislikes. And this probably has a lot to do with those who hate the favorites—probably at least a portion of those folks feel like dissidents here and thus favoriting seems, to them, to be an explicit force for conformity.

When I was here before, I hardly used favorites at all and pretty much didn't pay attention to what was favorited. But this time around, I've both been actively favoriting things (as marks of favor) and have kept track of when and how much my comments have been favorited. The latter makes me a bit uncomfortable because I absolutely do not want to chase after favorites and agree with others who think that is not a good thing, in general. But in my case, because I'm inclined to be so prolific, I've felt that my favorite-to-comment ratio is a good guide to whether I'm actually writing things worth reading rather than just indulging my inclination toward prolificacy.

I'm ambivalent about the controversy because while I agree that the concerns about favorites are valid and it's good to be aware of the negative ways they can affect a community, at the same time it seems to me that MeFi has a long history and deeply established culture that counters those negative tendencies. While there's always been a tiny handful of people who write (usually humorous) comments that are apparently carefully crafted to be appealing, are successful at this, and thus garner huge amounts of favorites, and in doing this they give the impression of pursuing favorites for favorites sake, which is arguably not a good thing...well, that's only a tiny handful of people. So what? They'd probably be doing what they're doing anyway, without favoriting.

Specific to this request, it does seem that calling them "favorites" when most people use them as bookmarks is, well, weird and counterintuitive. And calling them "bookmarks" would only invert the weirdness, not eliminate it. So the request seems reasonable. But there's an inherent conservatism at MeFi, and rightly so, in my opinion, because for the most part things work here.
posted by Ivan Fyodorovich at 2:49 PM on January 6, 2012 [4 favorites]

My new dream job is to be a color commentator for Japanese baseball broadcasts. Literally all they say is a variation on "ne" which is best translated as Ed McMahon style agreement, though a touch more subdued. You've got one guy giving the play-by-play, and good insights into the game, and the other guy just says "ne" or "so desu ne" for the whole show. Even with my sad level of Japanese, I'm pretty sure I'd be awesome at this job.
posted by Ghidorah at 3:02 PM on January 6, 2012

My new dream job is to be a color commentator for Japanese baseball broadcasts.

That sounds fairly racist to me.
posted by Tell Me No Lies at 3:11 PM on January 6, 2012

The Deej said:
1- Make a folder on your desktop called "Read Later."

2- When you find something you want to read later, drag the link from your browser into the Read Later folder.

3- Read later.

4- Delete link after reading. (Optional)

If only there was a browser extension that would allow you to Read It Later easily on any device. What would such a thing be called?
posted by coolguymichael at 3:30 PM on January 6, 2012 [1 favorite]

I would love it if the "favorites" section of the user pages had a named span around them in the source code so I could write a script to hide them completely.

Sounds like you're not kidding, so...

It's not terribly hard to isolate the location of the favorite totals on the user page, even in the absence of a span, and write a script that performs the action you desire. Basic pattern-matching can do the final lifting.

Greasemonkey anyway. Stylish, maybe not.
posted by mdevore at 3:35 PM on January 6, 2012

Yeah, favorites have had a completely deleterious effect on the site, but I try not to bring it up anymore because the mods have some kind of PTSD about it.

But yeah, before favorites, the way you knew you were "heard" is if you had some kind of effect on the conversation. So there was an incentive to say something new and introduce some kind of novel perspective. Favorites incentivize snarky one-liners and loudly agreeing with the majority. I mean, that was always present on the site, but the favorites system made it more pronounced.

I have favorites turned off, which has helped a lot. But unfortunately I still see it on my profile page, so there's still this subconscious desire to say something that'll earn me more food pellets. I mostly try to pretend that they don't exist. And I mean, they're totally meaningless. If favorites were indicative of social approval, then [CERTAIN USER WHO WILL REMAIN NAMELESS] would be the most loved person on the site.

Heh.
posted by Afroblanco at 3:40 PM on January 6, 2012 [4 favorites]

I know this is pretty much DOA, but I personally like this pony for baically the same reasons as Foci for Analysis, and here is how I would implement it:

• When the + is clicked, it turns into a little dropdown menu silimar to the one we get when we click the !
• The menu has two options: "favorite" and "bookmark"
• Favorites go to the existing page, bookmarks go to another one just like it but titled "bookmarks".
• The count underneath a comment/post changes slightly, to "marked x times" instead of "x favorites". Clicking the number would show (on the same page as currently) who favorited the comment and for what reason.
• The Recent Activity view would show both "recently favorited by" and "recently bookmarked by".

To me, this seems simple, relatively unobtrusive, unambiguous, and useful. I know it'll never happen, but I'd love it if it would. Right now I just can never figure out which comments I've favorited due to liking them and which I've favorited due to wanting to come back to them. I know there are other solutions but I wish it could be handled in-site. I would also support an approximation of this schema executed as a Greasemonkey script.
posted by Scientist at 3:49 PM on January 6, 2012 [7 favorites]

I sometimes can't remember which is supposed to be a kissy kissy kiss and which is a stabby stabby stab.

That's interesting, because sometimes I cannot for the life of me figure out either why someone has favorited a comment I made, or why a carefully honed and insightful contribution appears to have received zero response. Not that I pay attention to them or anything like that.
posted by carter at 3:50 PM on January 6, 2012

I think my list of posts I like correlates pretty well with my list of posts I might want to read again. Any way of indicating what I liked about a post would be so idiosyncratic as to be useless to anyone else.

able to tag favorites with some version of [useful/interesting/agree/haha/blackmail]

I'd prefer the following classification: [Favorites that belong to the emperor/Embalmed ones/Favorites that are trained/Suckling pig favorites/Mermaid related/Fabulous ones/Stray dog favorites/Favorites that are included in this classification/Favorites that tremble as if they were mad/Innumerable ones/Favorites drawn with a very fine camel hair brush/Canadian content (favourites)/Et cetera/Favorites that have just broken the flower vase/Favorites that, at a distance, resemble flies]

^{(self-favourited for future reference, because this issue was embalmed in 2009, et cetera)}
posted by justsomebodythatyouusedtoknow at 4:23 PM on January 6, 2012 [4 favorites]

My new dream job is to be a color commentator for Japanese baseball broadcasts.

That sounds fairly racist to me

(not really)
posted by Tell Me No Lies at 4:35 PM on January 6, 2012

Wow, I had never read that 2009 thread before. It's been so long since the last time Firefox actually froze while trying to load a MetaFilter page for me, I thought there was some kind of horrible music about to start playing automatically or something.

No wonder the mods don't want to touch favorites. If I were one of them there'd be a little troll doll named "Favorites" that I would beat mercilessly with a large bat every time anyone had a suggestion regarding them.

I try to give out favorites as a nearly physical (but not quite) demonstration of just how much I care about each and every one of you. Like hugs, only less uncomfortable for everyone concerned. I also define my self-worth largely by the number of favorites I have relative to the number of comments I make. So. Yeah.
posted by SMPA at 5:07 PM on January 6, 2012

I like Scientist's explanation of the concept, and would welcome it as either implemented on the site or as a Greasemonkey script.
posted by arcticseal at 5:23 PM on January 6, 2012

Yeah, favorites have had a completely deleterious effect on the site,

Perhaps, but they have a great effect on my ego, which is far more important.
posted by jonmc at 7:05 PM on January 6, 2012 [4 favorites]

The Deej: "1- Make a folder on your desktop called "Read Later." "

Yeah except now my Read Later is full of stuff I'm holding for now but don't know what to do with.

Scientist: " I would also support an approximation of this schema executed as a Greasemonkey script."

My only problem with this as a GM script is that if you forget to back up your userscripts, you lose your stuff. Example: The script that allows you to make notes to yourself on other people's profiles. I kept forgetting to back that up and would change computers or need to reinstall Firefox or something, and lose all the notes, so I stopped using the script altogether.
posted by IndigoRain at 9:06 PM on January 6, 2012

favorites have had a completely deleterious effect on the site

Favorites have done a lot to point me to interesting posts and comments.
posted by Blazecock Pileon at 9:45 PM on January 6, 2012 [1 favorite]

Getting favourites gives me a reason to live.
not the ONLY reason
but a reason, thank you
posted by a humble nudibranch at 10:32 PM on January 6, 2012 [1 favorite]

justsomebodythatyouusedtoknow, I cannot get behind a taxonomy that doesn't include "favourites that look like ants when viewed from far away".
posted by Meatbomb at 10:44 PM on January 6, 2012

We should get rid of favorites, and instead have an X flag and a Y flag. Everyone could use X for upvoting, and Y for bookmarking, or the other way around, or both, or just randomly click them for no reason at all.
posted by ctmf at 10:49 PM on January 6, 2012 [1 favorite]

Does anyone favorite the comments down here?
posted by Gordafarin at 11:33 PM on January 6, 2012 [1 favorite]

It took some time but I have removed my favorites so that I can use them as bookmarks. Realized that an userscript is unnecessary when mefi kinda already has the feature I need. Let's see how this approach works out. Oh, I also checked "Hide favorites" because I think that might make this experiment easier.
posted by Foci for Analysis at 11:47 PM on January 6, 2012

Does this mean you had exactly zero 'bookmark' favorites you wanted to keep?
posted by daniel_charms at 12:53 AM on January 7, 2012

(great idea, though)
posted by daniel_charms at 12:54 AM on January 7, 2012

Does this mean you had exactly zero 'bookmark' favorites you wanted to keep?

Unfortunately, I don't think so. But I just couldn't see myself reading every post/comment summary to decide if I should keep the favorite or not. The thing is, I've never gone back and read my favorites so maybe it's not such a major loss in the end.
posted by Foci for Analysis at 1:34 AM on January 7, 2012

My Favorite Things
posted by flapjax at midnite at 1:53 AM on January 7, 2012

Well these are just a few, woah!
posted by Meatbomb at 2:25 AM on January 7, 2012

We all lose in this popularity contest.
posted by Joseph Gurl at 3:00 AM on January 7, 2012

No, just you people.
posted by Brandon Blatcher at 5:04 AM on January 7, 2012

I don't dislike this idea, but I like favorites tagging more. I do not see the need for others to know what my tags are (probably largely something along the lines of "funny", "reference", "right on", "read later"), I just want a quick, in-site method for filtering down to the posts and comments I want to refer back to. Seeing what users' favorite tags are on their profile pages could be interesting, but I don't see any need to separate out various sub-categories of favorites in the threads themselves.

The thing is, I've never gone back and read my favorites so maybe it's not such a major loss in the end.

I think it's kind of fun to revisit favorites, but then I do make an effort not to go wild with favorites so that reviewing them isn't hugely onerous and bookmarking doesn't totally lose its utility. I enjoy being reminded of funny or interesting moments on the site -- it's part of the reason I look forward to the annual overlooked favorites post in MeTa.
posted by EvaDestruction at 7:01 AM on January 7, 2012

Overlooked comments, I mean. Bah. Morning brain.
posted by EvaDestruction at 7:03 AM on January 7, 2012

Pony request: I would like my ponies to be hummingbirds.
posted by nicwolff at 9:29 AM on January 7, 2012

I would like to be able to smuggle my ponies in my pants.
posted by Tell Me No Lies at 10:35 AM on January 7, 2012