Comments on: Metafilter is...

Metafilter is...

Galaxor Nebulon — Thu, 06 Sep 2012 10:10:08 -0800

Is there a machine picking up on all the "Metafilter: [catchy slogan]" comments?

People love taking random out-of-context quotes and putting them as a description of metafilter. Metafilter: better than a rabid squirrel (made-up example) Is there a machine tracking these, so that we can find out all the things that metafilter is?

By: Rock Steady

Rock Steady — Thu, 06 Sep 2012 10:12:35 -0800

MetaFilter: People love taking random out-of-context quotes

By: kmz

kmz — Thu, 06 Sep 2012 10:12:52 -0800

Metafilter: a machine picking up on all the "Metafilter: [catchy slogan]" comments.

By: gman

gman — Thu, 06 Sep 2012 10:14:07 -0800

I'm very curious to hear what else you imagine this machine you speak of does.

By: Egg Shen

Egg Shen — Thu, 06 Sep 2012 10:15:23 -0800

A machine that runs on beans.

By: philip-random

philip-random — Thu, 06 Sep 2012 10:16:37 -0800

Here ...

By: Galaxor Nebulon

Galaxor Nebulon — Thu, 06 Sep 2012 10:16:42 -0800

I imagine that this machine could also do wondrous things, such as show pictures of cats in curious situations, or give people a way to spread their uninformed political opinions to others.

By: Eideteker

Eideteker — Thu, 06 Sep 2012 10:19:28 -0800

No... not a machine.

A Gojira-esque daikaiju, yes.

By: From Bklyn

From Bklyn — Thu, 06 Sep 2012 10:23:04 -0800

Metafilter: Metafilter.

(not mine)

By: robocop is bleeding

robocop is bleeding — Thu, 06 Sep 2012 10:26:13 -0800

metafilter::ɹǝʇlıɟɐʇǝɯ

By: Max Power

Max Power — Thu, 06 Sep 2012 10:31:58 -0800

I can't read upside down.

By: Chrysostom

Chrysostom — Thu, 06 Sep 2012 10:35:31 -0800

Metatalk: This question comes up about once a month.

By: Galaxor Nebulon

Galaxor Nebulon — Thu, 06 Sep 2012 10:37:40 -0800

What is the answer?

By: oneswellfoop

oneswellfoop — Thu, 06 Sep 2012 10:43:48 -0800

"machine" is so 20th century... it's all "bots" now.

BTW, the MetaFilter Quote Fetcher Bot was just given a C&D by a DMCA Bot. Sorry.

By: gman

gman — Thu, 06 Sep 2012 10:44:11 -0800

The answer you're looking for is in the philip-random machine.

By: philip-random

philip-random — Thu, 06 Sep 2012 10:45:10 -0800

The answer you're looking for is in the philip-random machine.

actually, cortex put all that together

By: brain_drain

brain_drain — Thu, 06 Sep 2012 10:46:00 -0800

Whenever a "Metafilter:X" reference is made, a site script sends the text to a dedicated Epson dot matrix printer. A child laborer removes the printout, places it into a glass cylinder, and deposits the cylinder into Metafilter's pneumatic tube network. The cylinder emerges in Nepal, where a priest removes the printout and deposits it in an IKEA file cabinet stored in an unnamed minor temple, alphabetized by the first character following the colon. Scanning and OCR-ing these records is discussed from time to time but never really gets off the ground.

By: m@f

m@f — Thu, 06 Sep 2012 10:50:41 -0800

Metafilter: discussed from time to time but never really gets off the ground

By: m@f

m@f — Thu, 06 Sep 2012 10:51:43 -0800

*brramp* *brramp* *rip* *shoomp*

By: ArgentCorvid

ArgentCorvid — Thu, 06 Sep 2012 10:52:10 -0800

philip-random: "Here ..."

that list only goes up through 2007, sadly.

By: griphus

griphus — Thu, 06 Sep 2012 10:52:33 -0800

MetaFilter: HELP I AM TRAPPED IN THE MACHINE

By: scruss

scruss — Thu, 06 Sep 2012 10:53:00 -0800

> it's all "bots" now

Which, as we all know, is Gaelic for _____
(oh, what's the use ...)

By: terrapin

terrapin — Thu, 06 Sep 2012 10:58:07 -0800

Hey! It's all ball bearings nowadays. Now you prepare that Fetzer valve with some 3-in-1 oil and some gauze pads. And I'm gonna need 'bout ten quarts of anti-freeze, preferably Prestone. No, no make that Quaker State.

By: Mister_A

Mister_A — Thu, 06 Sep 2012 11:04:32 -0800

MetaFilter: Imagine This Machine You Speak Of

By: Kabanos

Kabanos — Thu, 06 Sep 2012 11:11:16 -0800

Metafilter: Welcome To The Machine.

By: scratch

scratch — Thu, 06 Sep 2012 11:20:57 -0800

Metafilter: It Never Ends.

By: misha

misha — Thu, 06 Sep 2012 11:20:58 -0800

+++
???
Out Of Cheese Error
Redo from start

By: rhizome

rhizome — Thu, 06 Sep 2012 11:28:32 -0800

Metafilter: All The Things That Metafilter Is

By: Rhomboid

Rhomboid — Thu, 06 Sep 2012 11:33:27 -0800

To answer your question in a straightforward and non-jokey manner: No, there is nothing automated. There was a script (whose output is linked above) that was written by cortex several years ago and run as a one-time-thing special event that gathered all of the taglines from the comments database as it existed at that point in time. It might have been re-run a second time recently, but it's not a regular occurrence.

By: Galaxor Nebulon

Galaxor Nebulon — Thu, 06 Sep 2012 11:41:36 -0800

Thanks.

By: filthy light thief

filthy light thief — Thu, 06 Sep 2012 11:44:31 -0800

There's a thin page on the MeFi wiki, but it looks like cortex's list from 2007 is the most recent and up-to-date.

Related: MetaFilter banners -- it seems there were wacky slogans in the past, such as It's your web, log it and meta-meta-meta-madness.

By: Egg Shen

Egg Shen — Thu, 06 Sep 2012 11:48:18 -0800

The cylinder emerges in Nepal, where a priest removes the printout and deposits it in an IKEA file cabinet stored in an unnamed minor temple, alphabetized by the first character following the colon.

When the last possible "MetaFilter: ___" joke is deposited, the stars will go out one by one.

By: nooneyouknow

nooneyouknow — Thu, 06 Sep 2012 11:55:13 -0800

Metafilter: the stars will go out one by one

By: cortex

cortex — Thu, 06 Sep 2012 12:05:00 -0800

Updated for the present!

Metafilter
Metatalk

Chronological order ascending by date the comment was made. Metafilter file is significantly larger than the Metatalk file.

And actually the last version of these we had were from some time in 2010, and I'm running the same script now that I ran then to generate them. I should probably just either do this yearly or make it a part of the Infodump or something.

Note that there's room for error in both directions with this thing, since it's hacky and makes assumptions like crazy. So legit taglines might go missing, and things that weren't meant to be taglines may show up, and taglines may run too long or too short if someone did something unusual with their formatting.

And since I just ran them right now, the Metatalk file contains the taglines from this very thread.

By: mannequito

mannequito — Thu, 06 Sep 2012 12:07:50 -0800

Metafilter: Hey! It's all ball

By: JohnnyGunn

JohnnyGunn — Thu, 06 Sep 2012 12:11:41 -0800

metafilter: make it part of the Infodump or something.

By: mrnutty

mrnutty — Thu, 06 Sep 2012 12:18:53 -0800

Can this script also delete the accounts of anyone who does the "Metafilter: blah blah" thing?

By: The Whelk

The Whelk — Thu, 06 Sep 2012 12:24:44 -0800

Don't praise the machine

By: Riki tiki

Riki tiki — Thu, 06 Sep 2012 12:26:08 -0800

Metafilter: '); DROP TABLE taglines; --

By: tilde

tilde — Thu, 06 Sep 2012 13:07:07 -0800

Metafilter: Welcome to the machine.

Metaflitter: Ooh, shiny!

By: tilde

tilde — Thu, 06 Sep 2012 13:18:28 -0800

OH, they have to be on an individual line. See, I thought the whole Metafilter: I'm so damn catchy smarty pie was just a thing. Not a THING.

Reposting for the next scrape:

Metafilter: CAPSLOCK IS HOW I'M FEELING ON THE INSIDE.

Metafilter: Vaguely remembering something someone might have posted somewhere else that one time about something kind of like you're almost rememberishing.

/knocks it off

By: Justinian

Justinian — Thu, 06 Sep 2012 13:52:27 -0800

"Metafilter: The plastic.com it's okay to like" will always be my favorite. Sadly a lot of people these days probably don't even remember plastic.com.

By: wolfdreams01

wolfdreams01 — Thu, 06 Sep 2012 14:58:08 -0800

Ugh, I hate those - they're almost never as catchy or funny as the poster seems to think. Is there a machine to prevent those? I'd drop cash money for something like that.

By: skrozidile

skrozidile — Thu, 06 Sep 2012 15:09:08 -0800

I really hate them until I see one that I like.

By: Burhanistan

Burhanistan — Thu, 06 Sep 2012 15:31:33 -0800

I've only made a handful of those but have had many of my comments adorned by it. It would be interesting to see stats on the original commenters, but that would be a bit more difficult to determine without a lot of manual slogging, I think.

By: rhizome

rhizome — Thu, 06 Sep 2012 16:21:14 -0800

I'm going to respect wolfdreams01 and not make three of them from their comment.

By: Mister_A

Mister_A — Thu, 06 Sep 2012 18:04:06 -0800

MetaFilter: I'd drop cash money for something like that.

By: marienbad

marienbad — Thu, 06 Sep 2012 18:04:41 -0800

"Ugh, I hate those - they're almost never as catchy or funny as the poster seems to think. Is there a machine to prevent those? I'd drop cash money for something like that."
posted by wolfdreams01

Why yes there is.

I just love the idea of a machine harvesting the Metafilter:__ tags, and Cortex has built and updated one! Awesome.

By: arcticseal

arcticseal — Thu, 06 Sep 2012 19:12:05 -0800

The mefitaglines script used to display a random assortment of the latest taglines, but it seems to be borked of late (at least on my Chrome installation)

By: RedOrGreen

RedOrGreen — Thu, 06 Sep 2012 20:09:35 -0800

I'm an infrequent commenter, so maybe I'm making too many of these. (Sorry, wolfdreams01 and mrnutty.) My most recent one is just two from the end of the list - what can I say? It seemed funny at the time.

By: tilde

tilde — Thu, 06 Sep 2012 22:41:18 -0800

I need to spend more time on the Internet. I didn't know the caps lock feeling thing wasn't from here sorry!

By: MartinWisse

MartinWisse — Thu, 06 Sep 2012 23:11:01 -0800

MetaFilter: delete the accounts of anyone who does the "Metafilter: blah blah" thing?

By: chavenet

chavenet — Fri, 07 Sep 2012 10:23:56 -0800

Metafilter: it's hacky and makes assumptions like crazy

By: davejay

davejay — Fri, 07 Sep 2012 15:42:57 -0800

Can this script also delete the accounts of anyone who does the "Metafilter: blah blah" thing?

If the regex is poorly written, your account is gonna get deleted, so there.

By: Riki tiki

Riki tiki — Fri, 07 Sep 2012 17:52:55 -0800

davejay: "If the regex is poorly written, your account is gonna get deleted"

Do you mind if I quote this in every code review I perform from now on?

By: infini

infini — Fri, 07 Sep 2012 22:30:14 -0800

Metafilter: I need to spend more time on the Internet.

By: rhizome

rhizome — Fri, 07 Sep 2012 22:43:00 -0800

Metafilter: The "Metafilter: blah blah" thing

By: [@I][:+:][@I]

[@I][:+:][@I] — Sat, 08 Sep 2012 12:02:07 -0800

While squirrels can get rabies, they rarely do.

By: Night_owl

Night_owl — Sat, 08 Sep 2012 12:08:56 -0800

Wait, what?

By: cortex

cortex — Sat, 08 Sep 2012 12:21:36 -0800

If it's a legitimate rabid bite, squirrels have a way of just shutting that whole thing down.

By: double block and bleed

double block and bleed — Sun, 09 Sep 2012 10:14:11 -0800

There's a greasemonkey script to strip them out.

Even better, there's another greasemonkey script that strips out single-dot obit comments!

By: BungaDunga

BungaDunga — Sun, 09 Sep 2012 20:37:37 -0800

Metafilter: It seemed funny at the time.