Comments on: Best Of v. Sidebar

Best Of v. Sidebar

davidjmcgee — Tue, 10 Jul 2012 13:00:00 -0800

Given the existence of the BestOf blog (which is lovely) what is the current role of the (also lovely, of course!) Sidebar? Is the Sidebar now like the Best Of BestOf? Or are they for featuring different sorts of things?

By: cortex

cortex — Tue, 10 Jul 2012 13:07:40 -0800

Best Of gets basically everything on the sidebar plus the larger often-with-photos new sort of highlight posts, basically, though now and then there's stuff that's more inside baseball mefite stuff that might only get mentioned on the sidebar and not Best Of.

Venn diagram stuff, basically. The sidebar is still basically what it's always been; Best Of is just an additional way to present most of that stuff and also some newer kinds of things as well.

By: cortex

cortex — Tue, 10 Jul 2012 13:12:00 -0800

A couple for-examples:

- a great standalone comment would likely get posted to both

- a mefi-related survey or metatalk type event would be likely to hit only the sidebar and not Best Of since it's less for public consumption

- a neat front page post might make good Best Of fodder for non-regular readers but isn't the sort of thing we tend to sidebar

By: davidjmcgee

davidjmcgee — Tue, 10 Jul 2012 13:17:48 -0800

Cool. Thanks!

By: jessamyn

jessamyn — Tue, 10 Jul 2012 13:38:48 -0800

Yeah it's funny we were just talking about this today. I often don't think about it too much but sidebar stuff used to be purely cool comments and/or inside baseball things. The BestOf is often highlighting bigger deal stuff that might make sense to the non-inside baseball crowd.

By: Iteki

Iteki — Tue, 10 Jul 2012 13:51:20 -0800

BestOf makes Flipboard delicious.

By: JimmyJames

JimmyJames — Tue, 10 Jul 2012 14:09:23 -0800

HUGE *snaps* for best of. It's already a awesome part of the site.

By: ocherdraco

ocherdraco — Tue, 10 Jul 2012 14:29:30 -0800

Hey! I have a question about the Best Of blog: why doesn't it have a mobile stylesheet like the rest of Metafilter? I'm primarily reading MeFi on my phone these days, and looking at the Best Of blog is tricky.

By: phunniemee

phunniemee — Tue, 10 Jul 2012 14:46:31 -0800

Oh hey, while we're all here, pony request for the best of site...

I end up accidentally clicking it a lot because it's so close to recent activity. It would be awesome if it had navigation links up top like the rest of MeFi so that I can get where I want with out hitting my back button first. (Or perhaps I could be more careful/less lazy.)

By: lazaruslong

lazaruslong — Tue, 10 Jul 2012 14:47:57 -0800

Those two comments by cortex sure explained the heck outta the concept concisely. Someone that actually does that stuff should stick that on the wiki.

By: restless_nomad

restless_nomad — Tue, 10 Jul 2012 14:57:59 -0800

I end up accidentally clicking it a lot because it's so close to recent activity

I did this at least twelve times over the weekend so I totally feel you.

By: fleacircus

fleacircus — Tue, 10 Jul 2012 15:05:07 -0800

Ie the sidebar is MetaFilterFilter and the bestof blog is MetaFilterFilterFilter.

By: pb

pb — Tue, 10 Jul 2012 15:10:50 -0800

why doesn't it have a mobile stylesheet like the rest of Metafilter?

It does if your phone's browser supports modern CSS. If you're looking at Best Of on a small screen you should see a version of the site without the sidebar. Here's a screenshot on the iPhone.

By: pompomtom

pompomtom — Tue, 10 Jul 2012 16:10:31 -0800

Ie the sidebar is MetaFilterFilter and the bestof blog is MetaFilterFilterFilter.

Nah, the sidebar is MetaFilterFilter and the bestof blog is MetaFilterFilter the 12" dance mix.

By: The Whelk

The Whelk — Tue, 10 Jul 2012 16:17:48 -0800

I got the DJ Earwirm Mix, off the fucking hook.

By: ocherdraco

ocherdraco — Tue, 10 Jul 2012 17:17:26 -0800

Hmmmm... That's not what it looks like for me (I'm on an Android phone). I'll see if I can get a screenshot somehow.

By: pb

pb — Tue, 10 Jul 2012 17:25:19 -0800

What version of Android do you have? And are you using the default browser? It's testing ok for me in the default browser in Android 2.2.

By: Burhanistan

Burhanistan — Tue, 10 Jul 2012 17:25:22 -0800

Here's a screenshot of that on Android 4.1 mobile, but that's kind of an outlier at the moment. Looks like it's displaying the full site?

By: Burhanistan

Burhanistan — Tue, 10 Jul 2012 17:26:59 -0800

That's with the default browser. Same thing with Chrome.

By: pb

pb — Tue, 10 Jul 2012 17:34:01 -0800

The sidebar should disappear if the width of the browser is less than 950 pixels. You can try it out in a desktop browser by resizing the window. Not sure why the Android browser isn't picking that up in some cases. It's working ok in the emulator, but I haven't tried out 4.1 specifically.

By: Burhanistan

Burhanistan — Tue, 10 Jul 2012 17:36:56 -0800

Hell, it's all so fragmented and probably will change with the next rev. Just make it available through Google Currents and we can call it even!

By: Burhanistan

Burhanistan — Tue, 10 Jul 2012 17:44:41 -0800

Actually, it looks pretty good on Google Currents. Well, the individual pages do, the list view only so-so, but that's what it will do for any RSS feed.

By: ocherdraco

ocherdraco — Tue, 10 Jul 2012 18:22:15 -0800

Here's what I see. Android 2.3.6. Threes no sidebar, but the page loads super zoomed in, unlike the rest of Metafilter, which doesn't seem to have that issue.

By: ocherdraco

ocherdraco — Tue, 10 Jul 2012 18:22:41 -0800

Threes = There's

By: desjardins

desjardins — Tue, 10 Jul 2012 18:36:11 -0800

get an iphone

By: desjardins

desjardins — Tue, 10 Jul 2012 18:36:31 -0800

posted from my pc

By: Devils Rancher

Devils Rancher — Tue, 10 Jul 2012 18:51:06 -0800

I always hit the "popular" link when I'm aiming for recent activity on my iPad, and man, what a rabbit hole that is. It's a wonder I've got time to eat.

By: octobersurprise

octobersurprise — Tue, 10 Jul 2012 18:53:17 -0800

I got the DJ Earwirm Mix

CHOON!

By: pb

pb — Tue, 10 Jul 2012 19:36:01 -0800

I did some tweaking for Android. You might take another look and see if it looks better.

By: ocherdraco

ocherdraco — Tue, 10 Jul 2012 20:00:54 -0800

Thanks, pb! Here's what it looks like for me now.

By: item

item — Wed, 11 Jul 2012 06:28:29 -0800

Oh hey, there's a best of page. I totally knew that and today was absolutely, positively, definitely *not* the first day I ever visited it. I swear.

By: item

item — Wed, 11 Jul 2012 06:29:41 -0800

Because we'll be receiving a participation grade here, right?

By: the quidnunc kid

the quidnunc kid — Wed, 11 Jul 2012 06:52:17 -0800

The REAL question here is: why doesn't the best-of blog have a sidebar, to highlight the best of the best-of blog? Side-blogging the blog-best of the best-of blog would be the best. I hope the mods log this blessed suggestion that I've pressed, and when the side-blog's been addressed, they live-pod the side-blog of the best-of-blog, as a test. I'll never rest unless this suggestion clogs the chest of every mod-blogger - or, if they're unimpressed, let's wrest the pod-blog from those mod-clods (just a jest! - don't flog me, Ms West) and clog that pod-blog of the best-of blog with a sidelog, in a fog of protest.

But maybe you all have a different opinion.

By: Burhanistan

Burhanistan — Wed, 11 Jul 2012 06:59:01 -0800

Sounds like you just want a homeopathic "Best Of". Here you go:

Lick [[[[here]]]] for homeopathic site highlights.

By: TedW

TedW — Wed, 11 Jul 2012 08:27:44 -0800

I'm glad this got asked; I had just assumed Best Of was pretty much the same posts as the sidebar and had been wondering why the sidebar hadn't been updated recently. I was especially glad to see physicsmatt's posts on the Higgs Boson featured there.

Guess where I will be spending my spare time today!

By: ocherdraco

ocherdraco — Wed, 11 Jul 2012 09:38:16 -0800

Another question regarding the side bar and Best Of blog: do y'all look at everything that's been flagged fantastic, regardless of number of flags, or does it take a critical mass of flagging before you take a look?

By: cortex

cortex — Wed, 11 Jul 2012 09:48:55 -0800

I can't speak to Matt and Jess's habits, but I tend to glance through everything that's got a couple flags or more on it when I have a quiet moment. Not everything ends up feeling like it'd work super well taken out of context as a post, but it's not a "must have x fantastics to get considered" thing or anything.

But I'm also way, way slower on the draw than Matt and Jess so there's been very little of my byline on the blog so far in any case. I need to get back to posting Music stuff up there.

By: jessamyn

jessamyn — Wed, 11 Jul 2012 09:49:19 -0800

I think the display list on our admin panel shows us everything flagged more than twice? So if there's something random that you think ONLY YOU may have seen for some nutty reason feel free to email it to us. I look at everything in the list and I'm pretty sure mathowie does also.

By: davidjmcgee

davidjmcgee — Wed, 11 Jul 2012 10:43:12 -0800

More questions! Does your display separate out whether something was flagged as fantastic vs. flagged for any other reason?

By: cortex

cortex — Wed, 11 Jul 2012 10:46:06 -0800

Yes! There's a little special place for only fantastic flags on our interface, called "good spots", underneath the normal flag queue which is called "hotspots". Here's a peek at what we can see.

By: davidjmcgee

davidjmcgee — Wed, 11 Jul 2012 11:04:04 -0800

Rad, thanks.

By: nobody

nobody — Wed, 11 Jul 2012 11:07:51 -0800

Since it looks like the two venues have mostly overlapping content, but with the plan being for some sorts of posts to only show up on one or the other, any chance for a single RSS feed that would display both but with the duplicates removed?

By: pb

pb — Wed, 11 Jul 2012 11:17:42 -0800

Right now we have it set up so all posts show up on the Best Of blog. So if you want everything, that's the feed to subscribe to.

By: nobody

nobody — Wed, 11 Jul 2012 11:19:15 -0800

Ah, got it. Thanks. (Cortex's first comment above suggested otherwise.)

By: davidjmcgee

davidjmcgee — Wed, 11 Jul 2012 11:24:37 -0800

Cortex's first comment above suggested otherwise.

Yeah. Now I'm confuzzled again. I think for me it comes down to "subscribe to Best Of, check Sidebar monthly."

By: pb

pb — Wed, 11 Jul 2012 11:27:36 -0800

I can see the case for having stuff on the sidebar only—and I believe we talked about that—but we're not set up for it behind-the-scenes. If we end up rearranging things so that happens we'll announce it in MetaTalk.

By: cortex

cortex — Wed, 11 Jul 2012 11:34:09 -0800

Yeah, I may just be wrong about the actual state of things. In which case, okay! What he said.

By: phunniemee

phunniemee — Wed, 11 Jul 2012 11:45:18 -0800

Here's a peek at what we can see.

I love the behind-the-scenes stuff.

Next April Fool's, you guys should set everyone's view to mod view. Just don't give anyone power. Just kidding...you should totally give me power. I promise I'll be nice. Gold stars for everyone!

By: pb

pb — Wed, 11 Jul 2012 11:51:22 -0800

What he said.

Yeah, I just double-checked the code to make sure. It's confusing because on the admin side there's a form to make a new post. And that form has two spots: one for sideblog text and one for Best Of text. They can be slightly different. We have more space on the blog, so we can post longer excerpts and pictures and inline music players, and all that.

So it looks like you can just post something to the sideblog if you leave the Best Of spot blank. But the code for the Best Of blog says, "No specific Best Of text? Use the sideblog text."

By: radwolf76

radwolf76 — Wed, 11 Jul 2012 14:12:43 -0800

Here's a peek at what we can see.

I don't even see the flags anymore, I see blond, brunette, redhead...