What's your favorite way to use favorites?

August 16, 2012 4:04 PM

What's the best way to use your favorites? How do you make the most of them? Looking for tips, tricks, hacks, organization methods, the works.

I would love to be able to see the threads I've favorited grouped by category, tag, etc - I am always favoriting AskMe threads on, for example, marriage, clothing, music, etc. but as far as I know they can only be sorted by when I favorited them. So how do you get the most out of favoriting, or what am I missing?

posted by thrasher to MetaFilter-Related at 4:04 PM (70 comments total)

amanda: "I use post favorites to bookmark threads that I want to save... I'm wondering if it's possible to just search within my favorites."
pb: "Sure, go to your favorites page and use the search form at the top right of the page."

The link to "your favorites page" is http://www.metafilter.com/favorites/000000
Just replace the zeros with your user number (so for instance, thrasher, your user number is 143957).
posted by flex at 4:15 PM on August 16, 2012 [5 favorites]

Thanks for the link to that thread - I had no idea MyMeFi and MyAsk were so damn cool.
posted by thrasher at 4:21 PM on August 16, 2012

I would absolutely love it if we could set up an IFTTT (If This Then That) profile for Metafilter that would allow me to set up rules such as:
"If I 'favorite' a post, save it as a note in Evernote."
or
"If I favorite a comment, save it to a "Favorite Notes" note in Evernote."
posted by smitt at 4:23 PM on August 16, 2012 [4 favorites]

Aaaand I just realized that it's already been done.
posted by smitt at 4:30 PM on August 16, 2012 [20 favorites]

"If I 'favorite' a post, save it as a note in Evernote."

I use IFTTT's RSS channel and corresponding feeds from my profile on Metafilter to do just this (on Pinboard) and it works like a charm. Example recipe for favorite posts.
posted by Lorin at 4:31 PM on August 16, 2012 [2 favorites]

javascript:location.href='http://del.icio.us/tellurianmonkey?v=3&url='+encodeURIComponent(location.href)+'&title='+encodeURIComponent(document.title)
And then tag them.
posted by unliteral at 4:48 PM on August 16, 2012

I chop them into a fine powder and snort them with a rolled up C-note.
posted by Egg Shen at 5:07 PM on August 16, 2012 [6 favorites]

Is there an RSS feed for favorited comments? Or, better yet, one for both posts and comments?
posted by matthewr at 5:10 PM on August 16, 2012

I'm saving my favorites. When I hit 10,000, I'm trading them in for a set of lawn furniture.
posted by octobersurprise at 5:29 PM on August 16, 2012 [1 favorite]

What's the best way to use your favorites?

Some grocery stores accept them in lieu of food stamps.
posted by special-k at 5:30 PM on August 16, 2012 [1 favorite]

I use them in lieu of recent activity.
posted by cjorgensen at 5:32 PM on August 16, 2012

In this thread, I outlined how I use Yahoo Pipes and IFTTT to send my favorited threads to Instapaper only after it's been X number of days so they can accumulate comments.
posted by Apropos of Something at 5:34 PM on August 16, 2012 [7 favorites]

I looked at IFTTT a while back, but I have just now had a brainbloom (the happy flipside to a brainfart) thanks to this thread about how I can use it.

On the other hand, I hate building too much of my daily web use around services that may disappear or get swallowed up and killed by one of the GooFaceTwitHoo Behemoths, so I am hesitant to invest too much effort.

Stupid Behemoths.
posted by stavrosthewonderchicken at 5:39 PM on August 16, 2012 [1 favorite]

Oh, pretty much I swim around in them like Scrooge McDuck.
posted by FAMOUS MONSTER at 6:02 PM on August 16, 2012 [5 favorites]

Their radiant glow warms me during my Dark Nights of the Soul. When I get 15,000, I am hoping to use them as a down payment on a new soul.
posted by GenjiandProust at 6:25 PM on August 16, 2012 [2 favorites]

I mentioned this before but I bronzed a couple and hung them on the wall in my rumpus room, then half were stolen by a woman I met on Craigslist.
posted by Ad hominem at 6:28 PM on August 16, 2012 [3 favorites]

I trade them for sex. 20F, same as in town.
posted by Forktine at 6:38 PM on August 16, 2012

I just trade 'em in for more tokens and play skeeball.
posted by Diablevert at 7:08 PM on August 16, 2012 [2 favorites]

I throw them all out every so often and start over.
posted by Bunny Ultramod at 7:09 PM on August 16, 2012 [1 favorite]

I actually use them as bookmarks and sometimes as a joke. I kinda fell like who the fuck cares if something is *my* favorite. I don't have to tell everyone I like something. That is probably just me, I don't "like" things on FB or upvote on reddit either and upvotes actually matter because they move the comment up the page.
posted by Ad hominem at 7:11 PM on August 16, 2012

Holy shit. There were comments in this thread after mine above? I wonder how often that happens.
posted by cjorgensen at 7:24 PM on August 16, 2012 [1 favorite]

I give my favorites names and backstories and dress them up in doll-size period costume and every day I pick out three or four and we go off and have whimsical adventures together.
posted by prize bull octorok at 7:55 PM on August 16, 2012 [3 favorites]

When I get 15,000, I am hoping to use them as a down payment on a new soul.

Just get lawn furniture; it's easier to keep clean.
posted by octobersurprise at 7:55 PM on August 16, 2012 [1 favorite]

I hear that you can cash 5000 of them in for a $10 gift card at the Apple Store.
posted by crunchland at 8:09 PM on August 16, 2012

When it comes to comments, I use them to reward people whose opinions are politically in tune with my own -- regardless of the lack of originality or insight.

When it comes to posts, I'm all about favoriting lolcats and Dr Who news.
posted by PeterMcDermott at 8:16 PM on August 16, 2012 [2 favorites]

I carefully calculate everybody's ratio of favorites to posts and comments - applying an appropriate adjustment factor for users who were active before favorites were instituted or with disproportionate participation on Ask, where activities are less favorited - and then use the result to judge people's value as human beings.
posted by strangely stunted trees at 8:51 PM on August 16, 2012 [3 favorites]

Lick them until they become engorged.
posted by Burhanistan at 9:13 PM on August 16, 2012

I favorite things with them.
posted by AugustWest at 9:33 PM on August 16, 2012 [2 favorites]

You know what I wonder about? Getting a favorite on a comment from like a year ago. Don't get me wrong, I love all of my favorites equally, even the gingers (who am I kidding, I love the gingers more, they are cute as buttons), but I gotta wonder why somebody would favorite some one liner from like a year ago.That being said, Even thought some of my early work is a bit uneven I appreciate people who may have just discovered my back catalog of comments and took the time to dig out the gems.
posted by Ad hominem at 9:39 PM on August 16, 2012 [2 favorites]

Getting a favorite on a comment from like a year ago

Every so often some old, old comment will get a bunch of new favorites. Sometimes I can do a search for the comment number and find where it is getting linked, but other times it's a total mystery to me where the sudden, odd attention is coming from.
posted by Forktine at 10:01 PM on August 16, 2012 [2 favorites]

I use them to reward the righteous and punish the wicked. Yet world peace seems no closer?
posted by Abiezer at 10:02 PM on August 16, 2012 [4 favorites]

Always use your favorites for good and never for evil.
posted by XMLicious at 10:13 PM on August 16, 2012 [1 favorite]

What Abiezer said, only the other way around.
posted by Decani at 10:19 PM on August 16, 2012 [3 favorites]

I use them as a private jokebook. Whenever I need a good laugh I read 'em.
posted by a humble nudibranch at 12:04 AM on August 17, 2012 [4 favorites]

What's the best way to use your favorites?

i put mine in a metal urn
then scatter them around
like they were ashes of the dead
all sprinkled on the ground
that way they're carried on the wind
and 'cross the shining sea
and when i die? my favorites then
will do the same for me
posted by flapjax at midnite at 12:08 AM on August 17, 2012 [2 favorites]

I use them to assuage my disappointment over my music posts.

Could we initiate a favorites transfer system whereby I could move half of my offhand snarkily-gathered faves to the music I've poured my heart into?
posted by Devils Rancher at 4:44 AM on August 17, 2012 [3 favorites]

I favorite things with them.

Yo dawg, I heard you like favorites....
posted by lily_bart at 5:21 AM on August 17, 2012

I use them to assuage my disappointment over my music posts.

Could we initiate a favorites transfer system whereby I could move half of my offhand snarkily-gathered faves to the music I've poured my heart into?

Sorry Devils Rancher, but it just don't work that way. But I feel your pain. My latest Mefi Music post, for example, hasn't garnered a single comment. And it's about Mitt Fucking Romney, fer chrissakes! All those people round these parts always bitching and moaning about the major labels and the RIAA and all that, do they ever bother to stop over at MeFiMu and see what's on offer from the very people they interact with here at the site? Nah, pretty much not. They mostly listen to music from the major labels and the RIAA.

Well, as John Prine said, if heartaches were commercials, we'd all be on TV.
posted by flapjax at midnite at 5:28 AM on August 17, 2012 [1 favorite]

I use the search box on the favorites page to find stuff I wanted to be able to easily find again. It's a lot easier to wade through search results of stuff you've already filtered than through the main site search results.
posted by Miko at 5:29 AM on August 17, 2012

I'll use them to upvote things permanently or temporarily, as book marks, and as profile noise to confuse the NSA.

As for ratios, I look at favorited to posted ratio - if someone has a ratio of every other post is favorited by someone or higher, I might pay a smidge more atttention / give a smidge more weight to what they say.




Oh, just kidding, NSA! Really!


crap!
posted by tilde at 5:55 AM on August 17, 2012

I use favourites like a weapon.
posted by mazola at 6:22 AM on August 17, 2012

When I get 15,000, I am hoping to use them as a down payment on a new soul.

We can perhaps arrange a loan-like situation at less than totally usurious rates.
posted by griphus at 6:30 AM on August 17, 2012

I carefully calculate everybody's ratio of favorites to posts and comments - applying an appropriate adjustment factor for users who were active before favorites were instituted or with disproportionate participation on Ask, where activities are less favorited - and then use the result to judge people's value as human beings.

Does it weird out sonascope that you worship him like a god?
posted by Diablevert at 7:24 AM on August 17, 2012 [3 favorites]

We can perhaps arrange a loan-like situation at less than totally usurious rates.

Sorry griphus, I am looking for a relatively unused soul. I've read your comments; I know what you've been up to.
posted by GenjiandProust at 8:05 AM on August 17, 2012

I'm afraid you've misunderstood me completely. I didn't mean I judge anybody positively, perish the thought.

It's quite simple really, anybody with a ratio lower than mine is a subliterate who contributes nothing of value, anybody with a ratio higher than mine is an emotionally-manipulative hack who only cares about pleasing the crowd.
posted by strangely stunted trees at 8:06 AM on August 17, 2012

Still don't get the other use cases -- bookmarking, etc.

I use them to mark things I agree with; that I think are well done; that I think are well said. Things that are particularly funny, challenging, poignant. I use them to say -- this is well done, thank you for stating it. I use them occasionally as "me too", when what I have to say has already been said.
posted by cavalier at 8:08 AM on August 17, 2012 [1 favorite]

The "favorited by notyou" search box is smart enough to search through the favorites I've shared and not the entire site?

*tries it*

Hey that's terrific.

Can we have this for the "Activity from notyou" page, too?

Sometimes I need or want to refer back to one of my old comments or answers for a link or whatever. Sitewide search is too cumbersome. Browsing moreso.
posted by notyou at 8:09 AM on August 17, 2012

Can we have this for the "Activity from notyou" page, too?

On your profile page there's a search box in the top right corner below the main site search. The button says, "search activity". Try that one.
posted by pb (staff) at 8:47 AM on August 17, 2012 [1 favorite]

Every so often some old, old comment will get a bunch of new favorites. Sometimes I can do a search for the comment number and find where it is getting linked, but other times it's a total mystery to me where the sudden, odd attention is coming from.

Two things you can do to improve the breadth of this sort of search:

1. Make sure you change the subsite search dropdown to "all sites" (it defaults to just the current subsite you came to the search page from). Mefi stuff might get mentioned on Metatalk or Ask, etc.

2. If the comment id search doesn't turn anything up, try searching instead for the post id. Sometimes an older post will get linked somewhere on the site and people will end up reading through it and comments therein will pick up some favorites as a result.

There's always the possibility that someone is just reading through an old thread for the heck of it of their own volition (hitting the Random button, doing some archives surfing, revisiting old threads they'd bookmarked), so sometimes a stray late-breaking favorite will be inexplicable, but since there's no mechanism for non-members to favorite it's pretty much always the case when multiple favorites show up on an old comment or post that someone in the mefi community linked to it recently, and that's almost always going to be on-site somewhere.

The edge case here would be something like a twitter discussion about an old thread, where the inbound links are off site but in an ad hoc logged-in-mefite community subspace where people able to favorite it would see it in larger numbers.
posted by cortex (staff) at 8:52 AM on August 17, 2012 [4 favorites]

I attach the favourite to my finger with a short string and then punish the Prideful by retracting the favourite at some chosen moment.

This is also how I get free Hickory Sticks.
posted by Durn Bronzefist at 10:00 AM on August 17, 2012

Fat people smoking while declawing kittens
Objectivist rants while campaigning for Mittens
Casual misogyny, Israel and Bing,
These are a few of my favorite things!

Casting aspersions while kicking some poodles
Derailing threads with those ASCII art doodles
Zalgo odes turned into gibberish strings
These are a few of my favorite things!

FPPs made up of nothing but dashes
Fictional questions on terrible rashes
Going to Music to say "You can't sing"
These are a few of my favorite things!

When the mob bites, banhammer swings
When I'm feeling sad,
I simply remember
my favorite things
and then I don't feel so bad!
posted by goodnewsfortheinsane at 10:07 AM on August 17, 2012 [18 favorites]

The real question here is, what's the exchange rate from Best Answers to Favorites?
posted by Scientist at 10:09 AM on August 17, 2012

At least 20/1, same as in town.
posted by Devils Rancher at 10:13 AM on August 17, 2012

Scientist: "The real question here is, what's the exchange rate from Best Answers to Favorites?"

Don't exchange them at the train station; you never get a good rate there.
posted by JohnnyGunn at 10:15 AM on August 17, 2012 [2 favorites]

That's why I want a Best Answers tabulator .... but I'm lazy.
posted by tilde at 10:18 AM on August 17, 2012

Thanks, pb.

Was that hiding there in plain sight all this time?
posted by notyou at 10:32 AM on August 17, 2012

A BA gets anywhere from 0F if you hang out in the technical desert to dozens on the rocky shoals of relationshipland. The best results, however, are in the "name-this" marketplaces, but you need take care with the snarks in those pools.
posted by bonehead at 10:38 AM on August 17, 2012

Was that hiding there in plain sight all this time?

Yes, we added that in February 2008.
posted by pb (staff) at 11:14 AM on August 17, 2012

I'm saving my favorites. When I hit 10,000, I'm trading them in for a set of lawn furniture.

They're really flimsy, and don't look like the photo in the catalog.
posted by Ironmouth at 11:16 AM on August 17, 2012 [2 favorites]

All those people round these parts always bitching and moaning about the major labels and the RIAA and all that, do they ever bother to stop over at MeFiMu and see what's on offer from the very people they interact with here at the site? Nah, pretty much not. They mostly listen to music from the major labels and the RIAA.

There’s a totally obvious reason for that that you apparently don’t want to see; they’re full of shit.
posted by bongo_x at 11:31 AM on August 17, 2012

And now I'm sorry I (ironically) favorited this thread, which I did for the first reason I favorite generally, to bookmark it as a possible useful reference in the future. There are some funny answers here but none that made me laugh aloud, my personal criterion for a "tickled me" favorite. Also, no answers here that I want to vote in favor of, my third usual reason for addiing a favorite.

Maybe this question would fare better, in terms of usable answers, as an AskMeFi.
posted by bearwife at 12:19 PM on August 17, 2012

It would be deleted on AskMe because it's a question about MetaFilter and therefore belongs in MetaTalk.
posted by Scientist at 2:06 PM on August 17, 2012

There could be a new subsite, AskMeTa, where, no matter what question you ask, the responses are all snark and derails...
posted by GenjiandProust at 3:46 PM on August 17, 2012

well, no.
posted by clavdivs at 3:47 PM on August 17, 2012

I think we already have the AskMeTa pony working here . . . me, I'd like a subsite where you can ask questions about MetaFilter and the expectation is that responses are helpful and truly responsive, a la AskMeFi. Perhaps a special category of AskMeFi.
posted by bearwife at 4:09 PM on August 17, 2012 [1 favorite]

How about a Jeopardy-type site where someone posts an answer and we come up with the best questions it would be an answer to?
posted by XMLicious at 7:38 PM on August 17, 2012

I just passed 22,000 favorites. And I still have to do a site search in Google to find anything among them.
posted by limeonaire at 9:00 PM on August 17, 2012

Maybe this question would fare better, in terms of usable answers, as an AskMeFi.

No, no, no. Listen. Here's where the magic comes in.

When I meet with someone, who intimidates me? Who puts me on edge? A real "hard ass"? I just think to myself: they've probably handled one of my ass favourites.
posted by Durn Bronzefist at 9:54 PM on August 17, 2012 [1 favorite]

Handling ass favorites: that's where I'm a viking!
posted by stavrosthewonderchicken at 10:44 PM on August 18, 2012

I save them up throughout the summer and make them into preserves.
posted by krinklyfig at 10:35 PM on August 20, 2012