YOU get a favorite and YOU get a favorite and EVERYBODY GETS A FAVORITE!

May 13, 2013 5:54 PM

100/day just isn't enough anymore, given the increasing volume of quality discussion on this site. Could the daily favorites limit please be raised???
posted by Jacqueline to Feature Requests at 5:54 PM (224 comments total)

Favorites are not supposed to be like "digg", a way of rewarding someone. You can use them that way if you want, but that wasn't the original intent.

Favorites are a way of tagging a post so you can find it again. Are there really more than 100 posts like that per day for you? (You're easily pleased!) More to the point, your favorites list would soon grow so unwieldy that you wouldn't be able to find them anyway, even there.
posted by Chocolate Pickle at 6:00 PM on May 13, 2013 [4 favorites]

I feel like I'm bumping up against this limit more and more lately. It's easy to hit it within an hour or two if I find a good thread.

Pushing on after my favorites budget is blown causes me a great deal of angst -- I often find myself spending ridiculous amounts of time reviewing my previous favorites given that day, making heartbreaking choices about which ones to take back so I can bestow them on more worthy comments. Sometimes this is so stressful that I just leave the site until my daily favorites budget replenishes.

Most of you are probably laughing at my torment because favorites don't really mean anything. But if they don't really mean anything, then why can't we have more of them to give???
posted by Jacqueline at 6:00 PM on May 13, 2013 [16 favorites]

No.
posted by Simple Answer to a Simple Question at 6:01 PM on May 13, 2013 [12 favorites]

Chocolate Pickle: I just like liking things!
posted by Jacqueline at 6:01 PM on May 13, 2013 [10 favorites]

then why can't we have more of them to give???

I think the original answer to this was "Because tehloki" but I'm not sure that holds anymore.
posted by jessamyn (staff) at 6:02 PM on May 13, 2013 [24 favorites]

If the amount of favorites being dumped into the economy is ungoverned it'll be like Zimbabwe in here, and you'll need 1,000,000 favorites just to get a loaf of bread!
posted by dirtdirt at 6:02 PM on May 13, 2013 [32 favorites]

What about a microlending of favorites amongst members? Like Kiva but with less impact on the good of humanity and whatnot.
posted by macadamiaranch at 6:07 PM on May 13, 2013 [6 favorites]

Favorites are a way of tagging a post so you can find it again.

No, actually, they're used as however each individual user feels like using them. You're not the boss of us.
posted by elizardbits at 6:10 PM on May 13, 2013 [80 favorites]

Raising the limit won't require jessamyn to shovel favorites into a steampunk boiler hour after hour. Some of us would sometimes like to favorite a lot of things. Why not?
posted by justsomebodythatyouusedtoknow at 6:11 PM on May 13, 2013 [4 favorites]

If you still want to limit them, fine, but could that limit please be higher???

For the range of 101 to 200 daily favorites, I estimate that each additional favorite added to the daily limit would save me at least one hour per year of marginal angst.

No, I am not kidding. Yes, I take this too seriously.
posted by Jacqueline at 6:11 PM on May 13, 2013 [10 favorites]

Given the increased volume on the site, I don't think this is a totally unrealistic pony. I haven't run near the limit personally, but I am very aware of its existence and conserve/curate my favorites accordingly.

On preview, also THIS:

No, actually, they're used as however each individual user feels like using them. You're not the boss of us.

posted by ApathyGirl at 6:11 PM on May 13, 2013 [1 favorite]

"If the amount of favorites being dumped into the economy is ungoverned it'll be like Zimbabwe in here, and you'll need 1,000,000 favorites just to get a loaf of bread!"

Here, allow me:

This is why you should vote #1 for the quidnunc kid. quidnunc kid will return MeFi to the gold star standard and deliver us from the debasement of the fiat favorites. Remember: a vote #1 for the quidnunc kid is a vote for stability and security. And cheap bread.
posted by Ivan Fyodorovich at 6:12 PM on May 13, 2013 [36 favorites]

Huh. I just looked, and I've only favorited 1400 things, ever. What a bastard!

I apologize to being so stingy with my approbation, if that's what +ing means to folks. I know it releases a micro-jolt of happyjuice into my system when people favorite things I say, and I suppose I should be more freelovey about it, but I tend to use favorites mostly for things I really want to bookmark and go back to for some reason. I think I average one favorite every couple of days.

Ah well.
posted by stavrosthewonderchicken at 6:18 PM on May 13, 2013 [5 favorites]

Jacqueline can have my unused favorites, if she wants!
posted by stavrosthewonderchicken at 6:19 PM on May 13, 2013 [2 favorites]

It seems like a reasonable request. I don't use favorites the way you do, Jacqueline; but you're right that, if favorites can't be abused and there isn't a coding issue, then it's hard to understand why there is a limit. I'm curious why you take them so seriously but hey, prerogative abides.
posted by cribcage at 6:20 PM on May 13, 2013 [2 favorites]

Favorites are a way of tagging a post so you can find it again.

If that were truly the case, then there would be no justification for limiting them.

So maybe it is, and there's not.
posted by General Tonic at 6:20 PM on May 13, 2013 [2 favorites]

I don't use favorites. I work on the barter system.
posted by Toekneesan at 6:20 PM on May 13, 2013 [2 favorites]

Is it worth the time?
posted by aniola at 6:23 PM on May 13, 2013 [1 favorite]

Here's backstory on why they were limited in the first place. I have no opinion on whether the limit should be raised, I'm just fascinated by MeTa history. help me
posted by donnagirl at 6:25 PM on May 13, 2013 [14 favorites]

"If the amount of favorites being dumped into the economy is ungoverned it'll be like Zimbabwe in here, and you'll need 1,000,000 favorites just to get a loaf of bread!"

People will literally be pushing wheelbarrows full of favorites around.
posted by Room 641-A at 6:27 PM on May 13, 2013 [7 favorites]

> "Is it worth the time?"

I'm assuming that raising the limit would involve changing one number somewhere in the code. Perhaps pb will stop by to clarify.
posted by Jacqueline at 6:27 PM on May 13, 2013 [1 favorite]

I have been running out of so many favorites I blame the animal videos
posted by sweetkid at 6:32 PM on May 13, 2013 [1 favorite]

Thanks for posting those links, Donnagirl. That's interesting. Maybe 250 is worth a try?
posted by cribcage at 6:33 PM on May 13, 2013 [1 favorite]

I hate to admit it, but, ironically, I noticed a couple of hours ago that Jacqueline had favorited one of my comments... this post forced me to go back and see if it was still there... Thankfully it was, I don't know if I could have endured the rejection.
posted by HuronBob at 6:34 PM on May 13, 2013 [4 favorites]

I would be a very happy camper if the limit were simply raised from 100 to 200, but if you wanted to complicate things for fun, you could make the daily favorites limit automatically adjust upwards as site activity increases, like the consumer price index.

100 favorites/day spread out over the daily average of posts and comments in 2007 would translate to how many favorites/day at 2013 post and comment levels?

(OK, now I'm joking.)
posted by Jacqueline at 6:35 PM on May 13, 2013 [5 favorites]

100 a day? I'm barely averaging 100 a year. You have to be damn special to get a favorite from me :)
posted by COD at 6:41 PM on May 13, 2013 [1 favorite]

Maybe the solution to this problem is to further lower the limit. The less favourites get used as 'likes' and 'upvotes', the better MetaFilter will be.
posted by Chuckles at 6:42 PM on May 13, 2013 [4 favorites]

But that's just like your opinion man
posted by sweetkid at 6:48 PM on May 13, 2013 [10 favorites]

I've only favorited 273 things ever (I've been a member for almost exactly five years to the day) and yet I do not find this request entirely unreasonable.
posted by kate blank at 6:50 PM on May 13, 2013 [2 favorites]

increasing volume of quality discussion on this site

Your perception of this site and mine are quite divergent. I have recently become much more disenchanted with the quality of comments here, especially given some recent debacles on the Blue.
posted by the man of twists and turns at 6:51 PM on May 13, 2013 [4 favorites]

I like this pony. More love for all.
posted by PhoBWanKenobi at 6:58 PM on May 13, 2013 [5 favorites]

100 seems on the low side if 17000 was the original problem.
posted by seanmpuckett at 7:07 PM on May 13, 2013 [3 favorites]

I think I should be able to spend all 100 of my favorites on a single comment if I want!!!!!
posted by George_Spiggott at 7:08 PM on May 13, 2013 [4 favorites]

I would feed and curry this pony.

Have added 21000 favorites since January 2011. Would love to be able to favorite more than 100 per day.
posted by zarq at 7:11 PM on May 13, 2013 [1 favorite]

Here's backstory on why they were limited in the first place. I have no opinion on whether the limit should be raised, I'm just fascinated by MeTa history.

Huh, had forgotten about that. That rationale seems weird now: a few people (or maybe just one in particular) are abusing favorites, making them useless, so we'll put a cap on them. What sort of abuse would affect the site that requires limitation of favorites?
posted by Brandon Blatcher at 7:12 PM on May 13, 2013 [3 favorites]

I can't think of a pony request like this before, where there are zero compelling arguments for or against the proposed change.
posted by brain_drain at 7:12 PM on May 13, 2013 [5 favorites]

I think 100 favourites is a perfectly acceptable number. Anymore and they'd clutter up my lawn.
posted by arcticseal at 7:13 PM on May 13, 2013 [1 favorite]

I tried turning off favorites but you can still see how many people favorited YOU which is what I am more obsessed with so it didn't help.
posted by sweetkid at 7:14 PM on May 13, 2013 [2 favorites]

I seem to recall at the time hearing that it was some sort of server issue; the server couldn't handle one person giving out thousands of favorite at one time.
posted by ThePinkSuperhero at 7:15 PM on May 13, 2013 [2 favorites]

Maybe the solution to this problem is to further lower the limit. The less favourites get used as 'likes' and 'upvotes', the better MetaFilter will be.

This sounds heretical, but it may be right. We did just fine without favorites for many years.
posted by Curious Artificer at 7:16 PM on May 13, 2013 [1 favorite]

I also recall people getting all worked up over one person having a lot of favorites (like I did back when favorites were new and davey_darling had just favorited everything I did, giving me thousands more than most people). Now everybody has thousands and nobody seems to care anymore.
posted by ThePinkSuperhero at 7:21 PM on May 13, 2013 [3 favorites]

The Problem With Favorites

1 Favorites are just like all other digital currencies; nothing new
2 Favorites don't solve any problems that fiat currency and/or gold doesn't solve
3 Favorites are backed by processing power
4 Favorites are worthless because they aren't backed by anything
5 The value of Favorites are based on how much electricity and computing power it takes to mine them
6 Favorites have no intrinsic value (unlike some other things)
7 Favorites are illegal because they're not legal tender
8 Favorites are a form of domestic terrorism because they only harms the economic stability of MetaFilter and its currency
9 Favorites will only enable Best Answer evaders which will lead to the eventual downfall of civilization
10 Favorites can be marked/added by anyone and are therefore worthless
11 Favorites are worthless because they're based on unproven ColdFusion
12 Early comments are unfairly rewarded
13 21 million favorites isn't enough; doesn't scale
14 Favorites are stored in good comments, just copy the comment to get more favorites!
15 Lost favorites can't be replaced and this is bad
16 It's a giant ponzi scheme
17 Finite favorites plus lost favorites means deflationary spiral
18 Favorites can't work because there is no way to control inflation
19 The Favorites community consists of anarchist/conspiracy theorist/gold standard 'weenies'
20 Anyone with enough five dollar bills can take over the network
21 Favorites violates governmental regulations
22 Fractional reserve favoriting is not possible
23 Point of sale with Favorites isn't possible because of the 10 minute wait for confirmation
24 After the last MetaFilter post is made, no one will generate new favorites
25 Favorites has no built-in chargeback mechanism, and this isn't good
26 Quantum computers would break MetaFilter's security
27 Favorites mining is a waste of energy and harmful for ecology
28 Shopkeepers can't seriously set prices in Favorites because of the volatile exchange rate
29 Like Flooz and e-gold, Favorites serve as opportunities for criminals and will be shut down
30 Favorites will be shut down by the government just like Liberty Dollars were
31 Favorites are not decentralized because the developers can dictate the software's behavior
32 Favorites are a pyramid scheme
33 Favorites were hacked
posted by michaelh at 7:25 PM on May 13, 2013 [11 favorites]

Talk about history- I found a MeTa thread on favorites from 2007 that only got 13 comments.
posted by ThePinkSuperhero at 7:28 PM on May 13, 2013 [4 favorites]

I tried turning off favorites but you can still see how many people favorited YOU which is what I am more obsessed with so it didn't help.

Would it be possible to hide the number of a favourites on profile pages with greasemonkey? A little beyond my abilities but I would sure appreciate the option.
posted by Lorin at 7:30 PM on May 13, 2013 [1 favorite]

Bumping up the limit doesn't seem unreasonable to me. I think I hit the limit once during a megathread -- could be wrong and it doesn't really matter. But I'm not the bookmarker type, I'm the favorite if you made me guffaw type, or there's a lot of awesome to acknowledge.
posted by wallabear at 7:34 PM on May 13, 2013 [4 favorites]

Just buy more like the rest of us.
posted by cjorgensen at 7:50 PM on May 13, 2013 [4 favorites]

It was only very recently that I realized that people complaining about using up their favorites for a day was a thing. A thing that I didn't understand. Because I read and appreciate every single comment on all the threads that I read. I may favorite for something wicked funny or something that I want to save for a bookmark, but I guess I feel like you all should know that I appreciate you for who you are, every day. Thanks so very much for your comments and insights and for sharing. I give you all of the favorites that I guess I was unknowingly hoarding :::favorite fairy dust to all:::
posted by Marie Mon Dieu at 7:51 PM on May 13, 2013 [6 favorites]

You should get a sockpuppet account that you can use for giving out favorites when you've exhausted the daily limit in your current account. Call it "Jacqi's Favaganza" or something like that.

The mods may have an opinion on this strategy.
posted by benito.strauss at 7:52 PM on May 13, 2013 [2 favorites]

After that very difficult MeTa thread the other night and the way "favorites" were called-out in that thread, I don't think I ever want to favorite anything ever again. I am afraid I might end up on some users "list". Yikes

yea that icked me out a lot
posted by sweetkid at 7:52 PM on May 13, 2013 [4 favorites]

My only regret about that thread was that I hadn't thought to refer to the OP as BroP until after the edit window had timed out. DAMMIT.
posted by heyho at 8:01 PM on May 13, 2013 [4 favorites]

I have only used 3‰ of my daily favourite application. If everything's a favourite, what's special?
posted by scruss at 8:05 PM on May 13, 2013 [1 favorite]

Jacqueline: "But if they don't really mean anything, then why can't we have more of them to give???"

Brandon Blatcher: "What sort of abuse would affect the site that requires limitation of favorites?"

If there are a significant number of people who regularly run into the the limit then for people who use favourites for score keeping and or sorting this would have the effect of both raising the noise floor and increasing the number of threshold comments. (IE: the number of comments that get 1 comment and the number of comments that get some arbitrary number of comments).

Personally I think both of those things would be a good thing so I'm all for raising the limit or eliminating it all together. Also I'm always sad when I have the 101th comment in a meta where all comments are getting favourited so that would be a nice bonus.
posted by Mitheral at 8:07 PM on May 13, 2013 [2 favorites]

Since I use favorites in only one way and prescriptively insist that it is the one and only acceptable way for everyone to use them, this is a terrible idea, you are a bad person for asking for it and you should feel bad.


Oh wait. I don't do that. This is a good idea.
posted by double block and bleed at 8:08 PM on May 13, 2013 [4 favorites]

Somehow I got the idea into my head that I can only favorite as many times as I have been favorited, so when I run up against that limit I have to come up with something witty/insightful before I can keep using the site.
posted by danb at 8:10 PM on May 13, 2013 [4 favorites]

As long as we're upgrading favoriting activity, can we revisit the possibility of tagging favorites?
Ideally they'd be favoritor/user side only visible tags (relevant to my interests/awesome/more later/I agree/I lol/ whatever) but sortable and catagorical for the user to use (dear me) in their own favorable style.
posted by Cold Lurkey at 8:17 PM on May 13, 2013 [2 favorites]

One per year.

consider that for a bit... you'll come to endorse the concept.
posted by HuronBob at 8:20 PM on May 13, 2013 [5 favorites]

I use the favorite button to mark my favorite comment. Sometimes I read a comment I like more, so I change it.
posted by Ice Cream Socialist at 8:22 PM on May 13, 2013 [4 favorites]

Achievement Unlocked: PROMISCUOUS (40) - Complain in Metatalk about the daily limit on giving out favorites.
posted by Justinian at 8:22 PM on May 13, 2013 [6 favorites]

Favorites tagging is the prettiest pony in the paddock.
posted by EvaDestruction at 8:27 PM on May 13, 2013 [2 favorites]

Fact: favourites are scarce.
Fact: giving a favourite requires that someone else lose a favourite.
Fact: you're killing metafilter.
posted by blue_beetle at 8:28 PM on May 13, 2013 [3 favorites]

Peak Favorite.
posted by Justinian at 8:29 PM on May 13, 2013 [5 favorites]

Every once in a while I run into the limit, and yeah it sucks. Honestly after that I go off and avoid the site because it's weirdly excruciating to keep reading and find something amazing in either a fist pump-y fuck yeah or a "good info for later" or "whoa I will want to remember this happened" or whatever way and not be able to + it. I don't unfavorite anything, so.
posted by ifjuly at 8:30 PM on May 13, 2013 [8 favorites]

One per year.

consider that for a bit... you'll come to endorse the concept.

That would be pretty awesome.
posted by Ivan Fyodorovich at 8:30 PM on May 13, 2013 [4 favorites]

If everything is your favorite thing, nothing is your favorite thing.
posted by killdevil at 8:32 PM on May 13, 2013 [1 favorite]

(and yes I am the sort of person whose entire library is filled with books where the dogearing is so ridiculous a "normal" person would sigh in exasperation and tell me "well, what's the point of marking anything if you mark everything?", everything's got a zillion margin notes in pencil everywhere, etc. It's just how I interact with text, a sort of "keeps my brain awake and focused" active reading thing I've always done)
posted by ifjuly at 8:34 PM on May 13, 2013 [4 favorites]

ha, killdevil. It's true that I have about a billion favorite writers, bands, tv shows, people...but they are indeed all my favorite thing, and that's just fine with me.
posted by ifjuly at 8:35 PM on May 13, 2013 [2 favorites]

Always someone asking for a handout, and when you give them 100 favorites it’s still not enough. Here’s an idea; get a job! I’ve worked hard all my life yet the bum down the street gets the same amount of favorites as me, just handed to him, for nothing! Welcome to the new Socialist MetaFilter! From now on I’m turning all my favorites into gold, for when the shit hits the fan. And when it does don’t come knocking on my shelter door!!! Good luck Comrades!
posted by bongo_x at 8:36 PM on May 13, 2013 [6 favorites]

I can't even imagine going on a favoriting spree where I run out of favoriteclicks for clicking, and there are times I go weeks and weeks without favoriting anything (this sort of dry spell is usually broken when I have a few drinks and read comments), but it's hard to be prescriptivist about something like this. If people are running into this wall regularly it seems like it's probably about time to revisit the hard 100 limit. If a limit is needed, maybe pop it up to 250?
posted by barnacles at 8:37 PM on May 13, 2013 [1 favorite]

bongo_x: "Always someone asking for a handout, and when you give them 100 favorites it’s still not enough. Here’s an idea; get a job! I’ve worked hard all my life yet the bum down the street gets the same amount of favorites as me, just handed to him, for nothing! Welcome to the new Socialist MetaFilter! From now on I’m turning all my favorites into gold, for when the shit hits the fan. And when it does don’t come knocking on my shelter door!!! Good luck Comrades"

Born on thirdfavoritebase and thought they'd hit a triple.
posted by barnacles at 8:39 PM on May 13, 2013 [3 favorites]

Rather than increasing the daily allotment of favorites, we should allow people to grant fractional favorites. This would avoid favflation, and would encourage more considered granting by those inclined to faviscuity.
posted by alms at 8:56 PM on May 13, 2013 [3 favorites]

> I would feed and curry this pony.

Hm, I've never had curried pony. I wonder if it's better with Thai or Indian seasoning...
posted by ifjuly at 8:58 PM on May 13, 2013 [8 favorites]

I find I'm having a strange urge to FAVORITE EVERYTHING IN THIS THREAD.... because whatever.
posted by HuronBob at 9:10 PM on May 13, 2013 [6 favorites]

Hm, I've never had curried pony. I wonder if it's better with Thai or Indian seasoning...

I prefer it raw.
posted by Tanizaki at 9:11 PM on May 13, 2013 [1 favorite]

I just favorited my comment.
posted by HuronBob at 9:12 PM on May 13, 2013 [6 favorites]

Clearly, this MeTa needs this as the soundtrack.
posted by soundguy99 at 9:14 PM on May 13, 2013 [1 favorite]

I like to favourite things a lot and yet I haven't hit the daily limit yet. I think the limit should be increased as well, just because whatever.
posted by h00py at 9:15 PM on May 13, 2013 [2 favorites]

We could have a Year of Jubilee where every seven years favorites are wiped and we start over again.
posted by SpacemanStix at 9:20 PM on May 13, 2013 [5 favorites]

I would love to wipe all my favorites at this point, but don't have the time or energy to do so. We really need a "wipe all favorites" nuclear button.
posted by HuronBob at 9:25 PM on May 13, 2013 [3 favorites]

I've favorited exactly 900 things in four years. I make an effort to use favorites as bookmarks just because I sometimes want to find things again later, and it's easier to find them if I don't have other favorited-because-I-agreed-with-them things around.

But it's cool if other people use them differently and doesn't seem harmful in any way to raise the favorites limit.
posted by insectosaurus at 9:25 PM on May 13, 2013 [1 favorite]

I find I'm having a strange urge to FAVORITE EVERYTHING IN THIS THREAD.

I felt obligated to do so for every comment in this thread. Only time I've ever favorited one of my own comments.
posted by benito.strauss at 9:25 PM on May 13, 2013 [1 favorite]

Somehow I got the idea into my head that I can only favorite as many times as I have been favorited, so when I run up against that limit I have to come up with something witty/insightful before I can keep using the site.

Me too! Except 2:1. (more or less)
posted by Glinn at 9:31 PM on May 13, 2013 [1 favorite]

Oh, meant to say earlier too that the daily favorite limit thing gets rough if you take a break for a while and then try to catch up on the site, like more than a week's worth of backlog, which I do fairly often--I seem to visit Mefi in hardcore spurts (no snickering!) with lapses in between. You can favorite way more if you visit daily, regularly. I mean I know it goes without saying, but. The times I've run into the limit have almost always been because I was not hooked up to the interwebz (on the road mostly) and came back, tried to catch up in like an evening or two or something, and it was just too much material to cram into a 1-day-window's worth of marking/favoriting.

also bums me out that being a "fits and spurts" (usually 2 or 3 times a week) type Mefi reader makes it hard to participate in conversations because they seem to happen almost in real time as posted with the exception of those recently discussed "hidden long-lived conversation" posts, usually about TV shows, but I know there's no real solution to that and also it's a derail here
posted by ifjuly at 9:32 PM on May 13, 2013 [6 favorites]

After that very difficult MeTa thread the other night and the way "favorites" were called-out in that thread, I don't think I ever want to favorite anything ever again. I am afraid I might end up on a "list". Yikes.

I had been feeling the same way, and then I decided that I'm okay with being persona non elevator to anyone who keeps a list like that.
posted by oneirodynia at 9:34 PM on May 13, 2013 [11 favorites]

Couldn't agree more, oneirodynia.
posted by ifjuly at 9:35 PM on May 13, 2013 [1 favorite]

is there a way to search my favorited posts in case I'm looking for a specific post but don't remember when/where it was posted?
posted by rebent at 9:39 PM on May 13, 2013 [1 favorite]

At one point I thought it could be neat to get an RSS feed of posts people mark as favorite because it could be fun to see, but then Cortex said, "Why again?" and I admitted it was more of a hypothetical thing, like I didn't have anybody in mind, and now Reader's closing, so whatevs.
posted by klangklangston at 9:46 PM on May 13, 2013 [1 favorite]

rebent: search here
posted by the man of twists and turns at 9:49 PM on May 13, 2013 [1 favorite]

Can we change 'Favorite' to 'Flagged' and 'Flagged' to 'Notify Mods'?

Instinctively, I think it would solve all our problems.
posted by mazola at 10:00 PM on May 13, 2013 [1 favorite]

Raising the limit won't require jessamyn to shovel favorites into a steampunk boiler hour after hour.

You're obviously unfamiliar with Cold Fusion.

does the site even still run on that?
posted by davejay at 10:00 PM on May 13, 2013 [2 favorites]

"persona non elevator "

I have no idea what that means, unless it means you always take the stairs.
posted by HuronBob at 10:10 PM on May 13, 2013 [2 favorites]

HuronBob: "I would love to wipe all my favorites at this point, but don't have the time or energy to do so. We really need a "wipe all favorites" nuclear button."

There's a greasemonkey script to help you with that.
posted by Mitheral at 10:12 PM on May 13, 2013 [1 favorite]

I would love for the favorites limit to be raised. I run out of them all the time in long threads, favoring all the good stuff. Not that all of you deserve it. Clearly some of you are favorite misers.

Don't you know that when you flag more than you favorite, the ponies get restless?! Birds stop singing in the trees. Dogs and cats, living together! Mass hysteria. Eddies in the time-space continuum. Red matter, temporal shifts and tachyon particles!
posted by misha at 10:42 PM on May 13, 2013 [3 favorites]

I've definitely run out of favourites on busy days before. I'd greatly appreciate an increase in the favourites per day.
posted by Proofs and Refutations at 10:51 PM on May 13, 2013 [1 favorite]

Now that I think about it... I'm pretty sure my allowance went from 1.00 to 2.50 when I turned 14.
posted by ApathyGirl at 11:16 PM on May 13, 2013 [2 favorites]

you could have people be able to give unfavorites, and each unfavorite on a comment returns the favorite of the last person who favorited it to them
posted by Charlemagne In Sweatpants at 12:42 AM on May 14, 2013 [2 favorites]

I just want a script that changes all the favorites to favourites.
posted by Athanassiel at 1:14 AM on May 14, 2013 [2 favorites]

Users could accrue their favoring quota on a pro rated basis, earning one every 864 seconds instead of having to wait overnight to get their next per diem allowance. Optional: extra bonus ajaxy countdown timers.
posted by ceribus peribus at 1:30 AM on May 14, 2013 [1 favorite]

does the site even still run on that?

Yep, it runs on cold fusion.
posted by Brandon Blatcher at 2:03 AM on May 14, 2013 [1 favorite]

Favorites are a way of tagging a post so you can find it again.

Some people may pretend this is true, far fewer might actually believe this and act that way, but the truth is that the favourites system is completely useless as an actual bookmarking system unless you use it very sparingly. Once you get in the low dozens of favourites it becomes almost as much a chore finding something amongst your favourites as just searching the site.

But of course favourites are for bookmarking is an usual fiction for all off us angstridden nerds here who do remember our high school days and are wary of anything that smacks of cliques and social hierarchies. And for a particular type of geek, gru forbids you use something like favourites as social grease.
posted by MartinWisse at 2:09 AM on May 14, 2013 [6 favorites]

I thought favourites were for when I'm too lazy to write my own comment.

Or for sucking up to people smarter than myself.
posted by Salamander at 2:11 AM on May 14, 2013 [7 favorites]

Favorites are a way of tagging a post so you can find it again.

I thought they meant you like me! You really, really like me!
posted by billiebee at 2:44 AM on May 14, 2013 [1 favorite]

I'm currently averaging around 4 favourites per year. I managed about 10 per year in my old account (I was a lot more participatory on the site back then).

I can't conceive of how I'd use 100 favourites in a year, let alone in a day.

Oddly, I don't think I necessarily use favourites differently from other people - they're a sort of combination of bookmark and thumb of appreciation. Maybe I'm such a curmudgeon that my favouriting threshold is abnormally high or something.

Anyway, have some of mine. They're a bit dusty, but I'd still eat them.
posted by pipeski at 3:56 AM on May 14, 2013 [1 favorite]

Submitted completely without judgement - I have a theory that really active Favoriteers (I suddenely got an image of Mouseketeers and had to say it) either are or have the potential to be fabulous Pinterest users.
posted by ersatzkat at 4:51 AM on May 14, 2013 [1 favorite]

I just want a script that changes all the favorites to favourites.
You're in luck

With 467 favourites ever, I'm hardly the target market for this change and I tend to think favourites are overused (no idea why I think that) but what's the likely harm in increasing the limit?
posted by dg at 5:14 AM on May 14, 2013 [3 favorites]

Or raise your quality bar. I mean, I've been here eight yours and I've favourited just over 2000 things. A hundred a day? Lord, this site has some good contributions but not that many. Demand more from the comments, not the favourites pool.
posted by Decani at 5:14 AM on May 14, 2013 [1 favorite]

We should have unlimited favorites but each favorite cost $.10, with half going to Metafilter and have going to the favoritee. That way we all can actually get paid for being on here all day.
posted by FreezBoy at 5:15 AM on May 14, 2013 [5 favorites]

$69.75 for all those years of work? Guess I better keep my day job.
posted by dg at 5:22 AM on May 14, 2013 [1 favorite]

I propose we raise the favorite limit to 144. That's a much better number for a time bound limit.
posted by humanfont at 5:32 AM on May 14, 2013 [3 favorites]

Maybe divide the current favorites into two catagories: call one 'favorites', and use it to upvote/agree with a comment; call the second something like 'links' or 'tags', and use it to link to comments you want to go back to.
posted by easily confused at 5:55 AM on May 14, 2013 [2 favorites]

We could have an inverse relationship between the favorites cap and length of time on MetaFilter - a new user would have, say, a thousand, and a ten-year user would have like, five. The assumption being that a ten-year user would be very discerning with their favorite allocation.

That way, you could have really, REALLY silly arguments about favorites like "UserX has 10,000 favorites!" and "So what? I've only got 500, but they were from 5 a day users, so they're worth more!"

And maybe you'd have the folks with less than four digits in their user number who could, like, favorite something and cause it to glow.
posted by Mooski at 5:56 AM on May 14, 2013 [3 favorites]

Lorin: "I tried turning off favorites but you can still see how many people favorited YOU which is what I am more obsessed with so it didn't help.

Would it be possible to hide the number of a favourites on profile pages with greasemonkey?"

Sure.
posted by curious.jp at 6:04 AM on May 14, 2013 [1 favorite]

And maybe you'd have the folks with less than four digits in their user number who could, like, favorite something and cause it to glow.

Actually, so long as you're neither using the Professional White Background nor reading this on e-Ink, every comment is already glowing.
posted by gauche at 6:12 AM on May 14, 2013 [2 favorites]

It would make it easier to catch up. I've been procrastinating.
posted by davey_darling at 6:34 AM on May 14, 2013 [1 favorite]

My favorite rate as of right now averages out to 0.81 favorite per day since I joined. Mixed use; "This is a good post, I want to come back and read all the links thoroughly," "What a great, insightful/interesting comment," and "Making me snort out loud? That's a favoritin'."

I can't imagine ever running up against the limit of 100 myself, but I can't really think of a reason the limit shouldn't be raised. I mean, I guess there's the usual old fear of cultural change... but since MetaFilter doesn't promote content or users based on how many favorites they have, I'm having a hard time imagining what difference it would make. I can't get any more worked up over someone being too liberal with favorites than I can over people posting SLYT cat videos.

It would be interesting to see what a graph of average favorites per day per user looks like; what percentage of users are actually bumping up against the current limit?
posted by usonian at 6:41 AM on May 14, 2013 [1 favorite]

What's the current exchange on favourites? 1 favorite = 1.01 favourites?
posted by mazola at 6:46 AM on May 14, 2013 [1 favorite]

1 favorite = 0.65 favourites, but they just slap the same number on everything and sell it at effectively a 50% markup.
posted by goodnewsfortheinsane (staff) at 6:55 AM on May 14, 2013 [9 favorites]

I think mazola was asking about favourites CDN, while gnifti answered with the exchange rate for favourites sterling.
posted by gauche at 7:00 AM on May 14, 2013 [4 favorites]

You have to be damn special to get a favorite from me :)

The Special:

Posts:

4 zarq
3 fearfulsymmetry
2 the man of twists and turns
2 marxchivist
2 vidur
2 Joe Beese
2 kliuless
2 Chrysostom
2 JHarris

Comments:

7 Malor
6 DU
5 Cool Papa Bell
5 griphus
4 Ironmouth
3 Trurl
3 Slap*Happy

-

Anyway, I definitely favor raising the favorite cap. I'm a heavy favoriteer. Even so I don't actually hit the limit all that often, but it's really frustrating when I do.
posted by Drinky Die at 7:10 AM on May 14, 2013 [4 favorites]

This request for more favourites is hardly the most efficient solution to the problem. All the mods need to do is simply delete half of all posts and comments on a random basis, so we have fewer things to like. This plan cannot fail and no-one could possibly object.
posted by the quidnunc kid at 7:17 AM on May 14, 2013 [5 favorites]

Once you get in the low dozens of favourites it becomes almost as much a chore finding something amongst your favourites as just searching the site.

Maybe I'm just a crappy searcher but I find the opposite to be true and I've got well over a few dozen items favourited.
posted by Mitheral at 7:47 AM on May 14, 2013 [1 favorite]

I agree with lowering the favourite count to 50/day.
posted by Alvy Ampersand at 8:07 AM on May 14, 2013 [1 favorite]

We should get a daily double favourite opportunity in which we can favourite something twice, but only once a day.

also there should be punch and pie distributed in long threads
posted by elizardbits at 8:11 AM on May 14, 2013 [4 favorites]

also there should be punch and pie distributed in long threads

I read this as "punch and die" and was all like, WHOA
posted by ersatzkat at 8:13 AM on May 14, 2013 [1 favorite]

that idea is also pretty rad, can you make a powerpoint supporting this position for our next board meeting?
posted by elizardbits at 8:15 AM on May 14, 2013 [1 favorite]

elizardbits: " also there should be punch and pie distributed in long threads"

Alcohol. By the vat.
posted by zarq at 8:15 AM on May 14, 2013 [3 favorites]

Ok, I have constructed a very simple and easy to remember MeFiFave system:
1) Everyone should be assigned a random number of favorites each day. You don't get to know the number until you hit it.
2) Any AskMefi answer gains +1 favorites for the day. Any AskMefi answer that gets favorited gains +10 favorites. And one that gets marked Best Answer gains +100 favorites.
3) If any of your comments get flagged, you lose all daily favorites. If a comment gets deleted: No Favorites For You!
posted by FreezBoy at 8:20 AM on May 14, 2013 [6 favorites]

If any of your comments get flagged, you lose all daily favorites.

Sounds like a downvote to me, with a lead sinker attached. Grief flagging would probably be added to bannable offenses within a month.
posted by Mooski at 8:25 AM on May 14, 2013 [2 favorites]

There really is a favorite limit? I've joked about that, never realizing there actually was one. But this is of academic interest only, as I don't really like any of the things I read here.
posted by Mister_A at 8:30 AM on May 14, 2013 [4 favorites]

You could avoid accusations of grief flagging by flagging everything "fantastic comment".
posted by Mitheral at 8:31 AM on May 14, 2013 [1 favorite]

I'm glad this post is here. I've hit the favorite limit once or twice in the past, and have felt vaguely embarrassed about it - getting that "you have reached your favorite limit for the day" message feels like the site itself is passing judgment on my promiscuous ways. It's good to know I'm not the only one being so judged.

I hope the limit does get increased, if only to spare me further vague embarrassment.
posted by DingoMutt at 8:38 AM on May 14, 2013 [7 favorites]

pretty sure i have ironically flagged something terrible as fantastic at least once. i feel stupid just thinking about it.
posted by elizardbits at 8:38 AM on May 14, 2013 [2 favorites]

I'm favorite-happy and I have only hit my limit once, in the Boston Marathon thread. It was really hard to keep reading, because apparently favoriting is integral to the way I interact with the site. In conclusion: I endorse this pony.
posted by rabbitrabbit at 8:44 AM on May 14, 2013 [4 favorites]

I admit I am worried about over-harvesting of wild favorites, but I understand that favorites can be raised domestically in a sustainable way, and they are very delicious.
posted by GenjiandProust at 8:50 AM on May 14, 2013 [1 favorite]

Maybe divide the current favorites into two catagories: call one 'favorites', and use it to upvote/agree with a comment; call the second something like 'links' or 'tags', and use it to link to comments you want to go back to.

I often use favorites when someone writes a comment that I don't necessarily agree with, but is well expressed or thought-provoking. Many times I have used them when someone has made me think twice about my point of view. These reasons don't fit into the categories above.

It frustrates me that some people here can't accept that other people may use a simple and extremely unfocused tool for different reasons. Favorites are a very poor mechanism to divine others' deepest souls and hidden agendas. No one should have to defend what they've clicked.
posted by oneirodynia at 8:52 AM on May 14, 2013 [4 favorites]

Curious Artificer: "We did just fine without favorites for many years."

We have also done just fine with them for many years.
posted by Chrysostom at 8:58 AM on May 14, 2013 [5 favorites]

Favorite this comment if you think the favorite limit should be increased.
posted by Doroteo Arango II at 9:03 AM on May 14, 2013 [12 favorites]

Favorite this comment if you think the favorite limit is just fine.
posted by Doroteo Arango II at 9:03 AM on May 14, 2013 [3 favorites]

Favorite this comment if you think we should get rid of favorites.
posted by Doroteo Arango II at 9:03 AM on May 14, 2013 [3 favorites]

Favorites are a way of tagging a post so you can find it again.

I thought they were the equivalent of yelling "O SNAP!"
posted by Hoopo at 9:11 AM on May 14, 2013 [5 favorites]

Favorite this comment if you think.
posted by Brandon Blatcher at 9:18 AM on May 14, 2013 [4 favorites]

flagged for breaking guidelines
posted by elizardbits at 9:20 AM on May 14, 2013 [2 favorites]

Okay, pb looked at the numbers

"We had 36,176 comments in April 2007, the first year favorites were added. We had 54,018 comments in April 2013. That a 49% increase."

so, given that, we decided to up favorites to 240 (thinking "ten an hour" but there are no hourly limits) We can revisit this again at a later date. See how it feels for now.
posted by jessamyn (staff) at 9:23 AM on May 14, 2013 [49 favorites]

Yay!
posted by ThePinkSuperhero at 9:24 AM on May 14, 2013 [6 favorites]

And that, folks, is Democracy in Action.
posted by slogger at 9:32 AM on May 14, 2013 [2 favorites]

Favorite this comment if you think using favorites as an instant ad-hoc voting system, for all that it isn't all that clever, is still cleverer than some things that have made billions, e.g. Twitter.
posted by George_Spiggott at 9:33 AM on May 14, 2013 [3 favorites]

I love the responsiveness of the MF staff. You guys are marvelous. Thanks!
posted by DingoMutt at 9:35 AM on May 14, 2013 [4 favorites]

Hmmm, this is going to be a little tricky to work into the current MeTa plotline of the moderators as jackbooted fascists stomping on a human face forever.
posted by Chrysostom at 9:40 AM on May 14, 2013 [16 favorites]

We thought maybe you could bitch about how the portions were too small?
posted by jessamyn (staff) at 9:40 AM on May 14, 2013 [29 favorites]

Falsify some crowdsourced data that favourites cause butt itch, cite CNN/Reddit, profit.
posted by elizardbits at 9:41 AM on May 14, 2013 [2 favorites]

And, also, you should win things by watching.
posted by Chrysostom at 9:43 AM on May 14, 2013 [1 favorite]

And that, folks, is Democracy in Action.

More like benevolent dictatorship.

(totally not meant as a criticism)
posted by edgeways at 9:54 AM on May 14, 2013 [3 favorites]

Hmmm, this is going to be a little tricky to work into the current MeTa plotline of the moderators as jackbooted fascists stomping on a human face forever.

Give it time. I expect angry comments deriding "Bread and Favoites" as a distraction from the moderation. WAKE UP SHEEPHITES!
posted by GenjiandProust at 10:03 AM on May 14, 2013 [5 favorites]

We really need a "wipe all favorites" nuclear button.

HuronBob, did you wake up today thinking "What can I say on mefi today that will give mjjj facial tics?" You did, didn't you.

Increasingly, in real life, I am bereft at the lack of a favorite button. I may have to start carrying around these less satisfactory devices or maybe go the old-school gold star route.
posted by madamjujujive at 10:19 AM on May 14, 2013 [4 favorites]

I know it makes me a bad person, but I still kind of miss that old novelty account "You Get A Favorite For Being Dumb." Getting a favorite from that account is still one of my proud Metafilter moments, although sadly I can't document it, since You Get A Favorite For Being Dumb apparently was disabled, then went through a name-change, or something.
posted by koeselitz at 10:26 AM on May 14, 2013 [7 favorites]

We thought maybe you could bitch about how the portions were too small?

Something something mod apple-polishers etc etc obvious bias blah blah enforced MeFi cultural hegemony. Grar.
posted by donnagirl at 10:26 AM on May 14, 2013 [3 favorites]

you can just point at things and yell LIKE or DISLIKE aloud
posted by elizardbits at 10:26 AM on May 14, 2013 [8 favorites]

I'm here basically all the time, favorite an awful lot of stuff, and yet I have never, ever, ever hit the limit. I don't really see the point of imposing a limit at all, but still, 100 a day seems...excessive. Unless you're giving them all to me.

we decided to up favorites to 240 (thinking "ten an hour" but there are no hourly limits)

Notice that this kind of assumes that you're here hitting the plus sign 24 hours a day.
posted by Sys Rq at 10:27 AM on May 14, 2013 [5 favorites]

Hmmm, this is going to be a little tricky to work into the current MeTa plotline of the moderators as jackbooted fascists stomping on a human face forever.

Why'd we have to wait for PB to "run the numbers"?! How do we know those are the real numbers?! Maybe comments have increased MORE than the mods are letting on?!

It's been over 12 hours since the request was made, why are the mods only JUST now just getting to it? Don't they have someone on staff 24 hours now? Why didn't taz address this last night?! What are they hiding? Has anyone else found it suspicious that a lot of the mods are in Portland, Oregon and most are in America? Damnit, we want THE TRUTH!

WAKE UP MEEPLE!
posted by Brandon Blatcher at 10:29 AM on May 14, 2013 [8 favorites]

Also, isn't it interesting how they went from 100 favorites a day to 240? What an odd number. Why not a multiple of 100 or 50? Maybe because 240 is a Harshad number, and not only that, it is also a concatenation of two of its proper divisors. Combine that with THE FACT that it has 20 divisors total (1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 8, 10, 12, 15, 16, 20, 24, 30, 40, 48, 60, 80, 120, and 240) and it's pretty clear what the mods are laying the groundwork for.
posted by Brandon Blatcher at 10:40 AM on May 14, 2013 [10 favorites]

math homework!
posted by elizardbits at 10:50 AM on May 14, 2013 [3 favorites]

What an odd number.

Surely, 240 is an even number.....
posted by GenjiandProust at 10:52 AM on May 14, 2013 [5 favorites]

OR IS IT
posted by Sys Rq at 10:54 AM on May 14, 2013 [4 favorites]

current MeTa plotline of the moderators as jackbooted fascists.... etc etc

Indeed, the end of a thread about an uncontroversial and obscure one-line code change is the perfect opportunity to enforce cultural hegemony through in-group othering of dissenters.
posted by 0 at 11:06 AM on May 14, 2013

This sucks! Why wasn't I consulted? Now everyone has as many favorites as they want, and my stockpile is useless!
posted by Mister_A at 11:08 AM on May 14, 2013 [2 favorites]

GLENN BECK TOLD U TO BUY GOLD Y U NO LISTEN TO GLENN BECK
posted by mintcake! at 11:10 AM on May 14, 2013 [5 favorites]

I've already hit the new favorite limit for today. 240 isn't going to be enough.
posted by Drinky Die at 11:27 AM on May 14, 2013 [2 favorites]

> What an odd number.

Surely, 240 is an even number

We will call it "a Blatcher odd", in tribute to "Grothendieck prime".
posted by benito.strauss at 11:32 AM on May 14, 2013 [2 favorites]

I noticed you were up to something, drinky die.
posted by Chrysostom at 11:37 AM on May 14, 2013

Yes, but whom do I give all 240 away to today?
posted by QueerAngel28 at 11:54 AM on May 14, 2013

Favourite this comment if you think we should get a unicorn or rainbow picture for each favourite instead of an exact count.
posted by bonehead at 12:05 PM on May 14, 2013

I never use favorites so I've occasionally thought about selling mine. I see you can buy likes on ebay, but I seem to be the very first considering selling favorites and thus all of the advantages of being first to market can be exploited. Of course with the Mods printing favorites like the Federal Reserve on Red Bull, I'm certainly not going to get the maximum return on them. But if you find you're desperate and need to favorite more than 240 things in a single month, memail me, I'll send you my paypal info.
posted by Toekneesan at 12:06 PM on May 14, 2013 [1 favorite]

If the amount of favorites being dumped into the economy is ungoverned it'll be like Zimbabwe in here, and you'll need 1,000,000 favorites just to get a loaf of bread!

This is why fiat fave systems are doomed to fail. We need to adopt BitFaves, ftw!!!
posted by Thorzdad at 12:08 PM on May 14, 2013

We thought maybe you could bitch about how the portions were too small?

I guess I can live with it.

Can we get some root beer in here or something? This punch is awful. Who drinks punch anyway, unless it's the only thing to drink?

Also, blue background, really?
posted by krinklyfig at 12:13 PM on May 14, 2013

Ivan Fyodorovich: "quidnunc kid will return MeFi to the gold star standard and deliver us from the debasement of the fiat favorites."

I, for one, will not be crucified on a star of gold.
posted by chavenet at 12:25 PM on May 14, 2013 [6 favorites]

"Who drinks punch anyway, unless it's the only thing to drink?"

This is one of those childhood comfort-food things, but I've always loved Hawaiian Punch Fruit Juicy Red. I had a partner who not only thought it was way too sweet, she was fundamentally offended because 'red' isn't a goddamned flavor.

Except she said "flavour" because she's Canadian.
posted by Ivan Fyodorovich at 12:41 PM on May 14, 2013 [1 favorite]

Yay! Very much appreciate it, guys!
posted by ifjuly at 12:57 PM on May 14, 2013

I have bookmarked these three items for future reference.

Doroteo Arango II:

Favorite this comment if you think the favorite limit should be increased.
posted by Doroteo Arango II at 9:03 AM on May 14 [3 favorites +] [!] Other [1/3]: ·≡» [quote]


Favorite this comment if you think the favorite limit is just fine.
posted by Doroteo Arango II at 9:03 AM on May 14 [1 favorite +] [!] Other [2/3]: «≡» [quote]


Favorite this comment if you think we should get rid of favorites.
posted by Doroteo Arango II at 9:03 AM on May 14 [2 favorites +] [!] Other [3/3]: «≡· [quote]
posted by chavenet at 1:13 PM on May 14, 2013

jessamyn: " so, given that, we decided to up favorites to 240 (thinking "ten an hour" but there are no hourly limits) We can revisit this again at a later date. See how it feels for now."

YAY! :D
posted by zarq at 1:16 PM on May 14, 2013

madamjujujive: Increasingly, in real life, I am bereft at the lack of a favorite button. I may have to start carrying around these [epic win and epic fail stamps] or maybe go the old-school gold star route.

Something like this is surprisingly therapeutic. I review filings for a court, and my colleagues recently bought me a stamp that reads "NO. from the desk of (realname)". The "no" is at least 1.5" high and the whole apparatus makes a delightful thwonking noise when used. Honestly, you'll wonder how you ever did without one.

Still waiting to hear back from People And Culture as to whether I'm allowed to just start stamping it on litigants directly.
posted by curious.jp at 1:23 PM on May 14, 2013 [13 favorites]

Ok, I have constructed a very simple and easy to remember MeFiFave system:
1) Everyone should be assigned a random number of favorites each day. You don't get to know the number until you hit it.
2) Any AskMefi answer gains +1 favorites for the day. Any AskMefi answer that gets favorited gains +10 favorites. And one that gets marked Best Answer gains +100 favorites.
3) If any of your comments get flagged, you lose all daily favorites. If a comment gets deleted: No Favorites For You!

Man I'm having flashbacks to learning RIFTS send halp.
posted by winna at 1:51 PM on May 14, 2013 [4 favorites]

We need all of those stamps form this epic stamp thread in our lives.

posted by The Whelk at 1:53 PM on May 14, 2013

" I had a partner who not only thought it was way too sweet, she was fundamentally offended because 'red' isn't a goddamned flavor."

She's wrong.
posted by klangklangston at 1:55 PM on May 14, 2013 [1 favorite]

Now there's no excuse for you not favoriting everything I write!
posted by double block and bleed at 2:22 PM on May 14, 2013

For crying out loud, people, stop saying things I agree with or find amusing - I don't want to run out of favorites on yet another MetaTalk thread this week.
posted by SMPA at 3:33 PM on May 14, 2013

Thanks for increasing the number of daily favourites. I've ran into the max a few times and it is quite frustrating.

Hugs for everyone!
posted by deborah at 3:52 PM on May 14, 2013

YAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAY THANK YOU!
posted by Jacqueline at 5:17 PM on May 14, 2013

I now have to go back and favourite a whole bunch of comments. Thanks for all the extra work.

Seriously, this is great.
posted by arcticseal at 7:02 PM on May 14, 2013

Coolio. I've never hit the limit before, but I definitely use them for a wide variety of uses including kudos, sympathy, "right on", "appreciate the link", "interesting", "this is stupid as hell but made me laugh", etc. Another way I occasionally use favorites is as acknowledgement/thanks-- if I ask a question in a thread, and someone answers it, it seems less spammy to appreciatingly favorite their comment as a sort of "message receipt" than to take up public discussion space contentlessly thanking them.
posted by threeants at 7:19 PM on May 14, 2013 [5 favorites]

If a comment gets deleted: No Favorites For You!

Wait. Ever?
posted by Bonzai at 7:28 PM on May 14, 2013

+----------------------------------+
|        MY *OTHER* COMMENT        | 
|         IS YOUR FAVORITE         |
+----------------------------------+

posted by mazola at 9:03 PM on May 14, 2013 [6 favorites]

Thanks, mods. Very cool of you to do this. I can't imagine hitting the 240 level unless I'm weeping from joy or rage in some future megathread - and not even then, really - but it's nice to have the option.
posted by wallabear at 9:57 PM on May 14, 2013

Comments should be "dilution-graded".

Each user gets 10 "favorite points" per day. If she favorites 100 things, each only counts for 0.1 actual favorites. If she favorites only 1 thing, it counts for 10 actual favorites.

How's that for complicating things?
posted by sarah_pdx at 12:05 AM on May 15, 2013

Woo-hoo! Never maxed out, will have to try now! Thanks guys!
posted by Athanassiel at 1:08 AM on May 15, 2013

I think we should raise the limit to 420.
posted by clavdivs at 8:10 AM on May 15, 2013 [4 favorites]

The Keynesian interfering the natural order of the favorites market and dramatic increase in the F3 favorites supply is destroying the website. pb must be stopped before the entire favorites economy collapses under hyperinflation, the only way to restore moral order is a return to hard-favorites policy, 1 favorite per comment only. Favorites must be pegged to a real standard as a store of their intrinsic value.
posted by T.D. Strange at 12:30 PM on May 15, 2013 [1 favorite]

Hey, you know, Keynes was gay and married a ballerina so they could talk about art, so he really didn't care about how future generations might not want to owe all those favorites back because he wasn't going to reproduce anyway.

Also, it is a proven fact that non-Hispanic white Mefites get fewer favorites than recent Hispanic immigrant Mefites, and that this difference does not go away after a generation of immigrants has settled in to the MeFi way of life. We are foolish not to consider the decreasing value of favorites to new immigrants and continuing to allow $5 signups without any sort of favorites test.

Oh and finally, I have shown statistically that if a website is permitting over 5000 favorites (or upvotes) a day without corresponding downvotes (which some favorites economies don't permit) then that website is doomed to lose members and revenue over time and eventually go the way of Usenet and other great favorite-bankrupt empires. Oh, except my spreadsheet calculation is incorrect so that's not true. But it sort of is if we ignore a few columns of data. Or it's truthy anyway.

I learned all of the above this semester from Harvard professors.

On edit: clavdivs for the win.
posted by spitbull at 1:28 PM on May 15, 2013 [1 favorite]

ifjuly needs bookdarts. Please, show some respect for your books and stop digearring them, you heathen!*

* I don't really feel that way but my ex husband would. Once we discovered bookdarts, it was like an addiction. I kept buying him more...and more...and more. And it was never enough.
posted by Michele in California at 1:37 PM on May 15, 2013

Oh, and yay! on the raised limit, which I didn't know we had because I am apparently stingy with praise.
posted by Michele in California at 1:41 PM on May 15, 2013

Bah, favorites was already the worst design change in the history of this site, and it adversely effected quality. But if only a 100 day is a problem, then we ought to just give in to the obvious and go to a digg-like up/down voting system.
posted by dios at 2:10 PM on May 15, 2013 [2 favorites]

Yes, let's just throw all our toys on the floor and smash them!
posted by elizardbits at 6:49 PM on May 15, 2013 [9 favorites]

Holy crap, I've given out over 20,000 favorites? I might need a life.
posted by BrotherCaine at 6:02 AM on May 16, 2013 [1 favorite]

BrotherCaine: "I might need a life."

That's just crazy talk.
posted by zarq at 8:18 AM on May 16, 2013 [1 favorite]

dios: "Bah, favorites was already the worst design change in the history of this site, "

Other site / community elements that have probably also been noted as "worst change in the history of the site":

Open signups
Closed signups
$5 paywall
Limiting FPPs to one per day
Professional White Background
Anonymous AskMe Questions
One per 7 day posting limits for MetaTalk and AskMe
IMG tag removal
New mod appointment announcements
Best post contests
Comment Edit Window (BOTH times. First in 2008 and then again in 2012)
Visible Thread Titles

And yet, we muddle through.
posted by zarq at 8:27 AM on May 16, 2013 [5 favorites]

Except for visible thread titles that is just awful.
posted by The Whelk at 8:28 AM on May 16, 2013 [2 favorites]

I believe the Decline of Metafilter has been definitively dated to this post.
posted by Chrysostom at 8:39 AM on May 16, 2013

zarq: that's inaccurate. None of those things were major design changes that effected the way people contribute as well as fragments the community like favorites did. Your point is not one.
posted by dios at 8:40 AM on May 16, 2013

None of those things were major design changes that effected the way people contribute as well as fragments the community like favorites did.

Both the comment editing window and the thread titles did precisely that.
posted by elizardbits at 8:59 AM on May 16, 2013 [3 favorites]

Your point is not one.

People like the thing you don't like. Other people don't like the thing you like. This is a thing. You can't define what's good or not for everyone.
posted by sweetkid at 9:05 AM on May 16, 2013 [2 favorites]

dios: "zarq: that's inaccurate. None of those things were major design changes that effected the way people contribute as well as fragments the community like favorites did. Your point is not one."

Some of them most certainly did. Including the edit window (second incarnation especially) and the visible titles. Go back and read their related threads.
posted by zarq at 9:13 AM on May 16, 2013 [1 favorite]

I cannot see how you compare the edit window to favorites.

You can look at how people say they use them (and I mean here the overwhelming reasons, not the "bookmark" reason which is almost certainly the minority reason). Favorites introduced a consideration when people are participating about how their comments will be received because feedback is given. One result is that some people post in a way to invite favorites. And we have people even wondering why certain comments are favorited. So instead of people judging comments on their own terms, there is anticipated feedback.

Further, it has a very definite effect of fragmenting or contouring of the community in that favorites are clearly used as "I agree with this person/like this" which provides social cues about what type (both tone and content) are favored and which are not. One would have to be willfully dense to not understand that fact. We always see people claiming they scan for comments that have the most favorites, thereby highlighting what is popular, which additionally sends cues that it is the type of comment that is desired here, so there is another cue. Because people use favorites this way, there is little functional difference between it and reddit's upvote/downvote other than that the effects are less immediate and more subtle and cumulative with favorites. Finally, it is apparent from reading this post that it causes some perceived need of people to express their views (and in effect comment upon) the opinions of others which implies to these readers that is their place and obligation to judge other users' contributions.

All of these things have had a predictable and (at least to me) demonstrable effect on Metafilter. I understand people may like the effects and like being able to provide feedback on what they want to see, but to deny the substantial effects of favorites strikes me as disingenuous. To suggest that the edit window has the same fundamental change is not credible in my opinion.
posted by dios at 10:48 AM on May 16, 2013 [1 favorite]

"...but to deny the substantial effects of favorites strikes me as disingenuous."

I think it's had some effect, but that it's much less strong of an effect than I expected it to have. In both the positive and negative directions.

It does seem likely to me that a dissenting, minority voice on MeFi would feel those negative effects much more acutely. And, indeed, some of the positive effects more acutely, as well, and to judge them also as negative.

In my time back here as IF, I've found them moderately valuable as community feedback. I try to discount the favorites I receive because my opinion is popular and instead focus on when I think the favorites represent an affirmation that my comment was a valuable contribution, independent of its point-of-view. That distinction is hard to know, of course. But far from impossible.

My average has long been between three and four favorites per comment and while I don't find that meaningful in itself, I do find it meaningful when there's a period of time where I notably fall short of that average. I take that to indicate that I'm writing too many comments with too little thought toward making them worthwhile for others to read. I find that this feedback mechanism has improved my contribution here.

I tend to fear the tyranny of the majority and that's why I often defend dissenters here, as I have defended you in the past. And so when favorites were established, I shared your concerns and feared that favorite-seeking would be pernicious. And, as a matter of fact, there was a period just before I left as EB where there had arisen a trend in comments that were clearly written as performance pieces, not as organic portions of an ongoing dialogue, and which I think the visibility of large favorite counts played a large role. That trend bothered and worried me. But, I think you'll agree, that's pretty rare now.

On the whole, I just don't see that favorites have had much of a negative effect on MeFi at all. And I think the explanation lies in the particular MeFi ethos, which Matt has cultivated from the beginning. There's something of a type with threading and up/down-voting and some other things. Those things all sort of presuppose that noise will necessarily predominate, they encourage people to be cliquish, to self-organize into like-minded groups. MeFi has an almost aggressive ethos of a public commons in shared discourse — I think that ethos has acted as a check on the negative influence of favoriting.
posted by Ivan Fyodorovich at 11:34 AM on May 16, 2013 [1 favorite]

IF, this isn't really a political issue as I see it. It certainly has an effect on that, but I see it as much broader. Favorites reinforce that certain behavior is acceptable and applauded here: snarky (often rude) one-liners, injokes, bullying, as well as signaling substantively acceptable opinions (on all topics, not just politics: Apple, biking, etc). Sure, there are times when a comment is particularly substantively compelling that there might be value to positive reinforcement, but I think those type of good comments were valued long before there were favorites. My completely subjective belief is that favorites did more to entrench negative behavior than positive behavior. Say the subject is religion: I think favorites almost guarantees a number of caustic one liners will be tossed out with the intent of insulting religious practitioners in an effort to get the predictable deluge of favorites; I'm am not certain favorites drive many people to provide measured and substantial comments. Or if the subject is some new google product, favorites are more likely to reinforce in greater numbers some hateful quip about google then an in-depth and substantive comment about the technology at issue. Those signals, over time, have a powerful effect.

If that effect seems to have diminished over time or less of a concern as you perceive it, I wonder if that is just because it has become normalized over time so you don't notice it anymore.

My average has long been between three and four favorites per comment and while I don't find that meaningful in itself, I do find it meaningful when there's a period of time where I notably fall short of that average. I take that to indicate that I'm writing too many comments with too little thought toward making them worthwhile for others to read.

See, I find this by itself to be compelling evidence of a negative effect on this site. You are introducing a consideration into your analysis as to whether to contribute based on how you think others will receive it. I think that is depressing and a loss to the community. You should contribute anything you independently deem to be worthwhile. I want to read what you have to say; I don't want to read only what you think will be acceptable to others.
posted by dios at 12:36 PM on May 16, 2013 [1 favorite]

I must say this is contrary to the analysis of most people that early days MF was considerably more jokey, rude, and full of bullying than today's version.
posted by Chrysostom at 1:54 PM on May 16, 2013 [1 favorite]

That is sometimes referred to as the Jessamyn Effect, though others in the field have called it Jessamyn Syndrome. It may not be entirely caused by either moderation or favorites.
posted by Toekneesan at 1:56 PM on May 16, 2013

Because people use favorites this way, there is little functional difference between it and reddit's upvote/downvote other than that the effects are less immediate and more subtle and cumulative with favorites.

The lack of down voting here (besides the opaque flagging mechanic) is a serious, significant, difference between Metafilter and places like /. and Reddit that have down voting and more specifically automatic moderation via down voting. Not that anyone has ever serious proposed or as far as I know even asked for it but the day a reddit style down voting system is put in place here is the day I abandon my account.
posted by Mitheral at 2:16 PM on May 16, 2013 [2 favorites]

I like favorites but find myself jealous of people who get buried in them constantly because it does seem like there's a reinforced in group, out group dynamic at play. Then I find myself recognizing their style before the byline and missing them when they go on hiatus, though we are such social creatures who is to say that this reinforcement isn't making me a sycophant sheep man!

I think snark has always been around in spades since 2002 and it was much rougher then. Much more intimidating, not that I could sign up at the time...

With favorites and moderation combined I would say the snark got a little more concise and quippy but I'd dare say more civil, mainly due to the mods.

For me, my style is influenced by a desire to be liked in a communal sense (I'm much more feisty on Facebook which I need to curtail) and to share meaningful experiences and opinions. So I do post for favorites in a sense, but it's a strategy borne out of fear of snark. So I drop a few rapid manic comments here and there, walk away from the thread, and maybe check back later. I avoid getting too amped up on touchy subjects because the people here have always been persuasive and badass and someone always says what I would've said in a satisfactory or better way :)

I've always been scared of snark, though naturally it's comedy when someone else gets it and I think for my own comfort level it's a lot less vitriolic than it used to be. This is a good place for many, but not all... Typical for pre Star Trek human communities.
posted by lordaych at 8:31 PM on May 16, 2013 [1 favorite]

I just checked my comment history and wouldn't say I don't post on controversial topics, but I try not to go for the jugular at certain people or comments per se. I try to comment on the post and with my political leanings I do know I can get away with a fiery rant here and there, and honestly I'm ok with that. I've always appreciated those who are more against the grain like dios and Decani (in wonderfully different ways) and am also kind of weirded out by the way the site attracts a certain bizarre contingent of conservatives who fit culture in many ways, clearly want to participate, but just have a creepy trolly pseudo sincerity in their style. Maybe it's just one dude or dudette behind the army of people that have come and gone, but in a way they were just weirdos like all MeFites and wanted to be around, like Egbert on Poppy cat! Mind blown.
posted by lordaych at 8:42 PM on May 16, 2013

Poppy fucking cat. I hope someone gets that reference. Egbert that badger never wants to play directly with the others, so he says he has better things to do when invited and then dresses up in a crappy disguise and trolls them, but ultimately wants to play in his proximal but detached way. A responsible in group always asks itself what its role may be in making that happen but it's hard to pin down and some people just want to be proximal and detached like a husband and wife who haven't really been intimate in a physical or kissy sense in decades, but take immense comfort being in the same room participating in separate hobbies, reading, etc.
posted by lordaych at 8:47 PM on May 16, 2013

I think of myself as someone who tends to favorite a pretty good bit, and I've hit my favorite limit I think three times. And two of those were silly "favorite ALL the comments!" incidents, so really only one legitimate time. So it's surprising to me that there are a good number of people who run into their limits with some frequency. Not that I'm against the limit having been raised, just surprised that there was so much interest in doing so.
posted by DevilsAdvocate at 8:55 AM on May 17, 2013 [1 favorite]

lordaych: "I like favorites but find myself jealous of people who get buried in them constantly because it does seem like there's a reinforced in group, out group dynamic at play. Then I find myself recognizing their style before the byline and missing them when they go on hiatus, though we are such social creatures who is to say that this reinforcement isn't making me a sycophant sheep man! "

There are users whom I don't think I've ever favorited comments from, but whose writing styles I can recognize within the first sentence. That phenomenon isn't related to favorites, I think.
posted by Lexica at 11:24 AM on May 17, 2013

> ifjuly needs bookdarts.

My husband sort of does this; he makes his bookmarks out of pieces of leftover paper, and they're always super duper tiny things he folds and wedges just so to be right at the line he wants to keep track of. But me, I'm clumsy and handmade stuff would just fall right out and I'd go broke buying individual pieces like that, ha (one example of my folly: just for shits and giggles I decided to bookmark any instance of food description in A Dance With Dragons. Yeeeeah, you know how that turned out!).
posted by ifjuly at 1:12 PM on May 17, 2013

For a time, I wondered if my ex was snorting bookdarts up his nose or something. I bought him some tub of a hundred or something and those also disappeared. After that, I wised up and quit feeding his bookdart addiction.
posted by Michele in California at 1:16 PM on May 17, 2013

I have this weird thing that happens to me where I'll pick up a book to resume reading, say, a day later, and usually my eye will go right to the paragraph where I quit ... except I'll never trust that and scan back and forth only to realize that I didn't need to and then be a little bit annoyed with the whole process.
posted by Ivan Fyodorovich at 2:11 PM on May 17, 2013 [3 favorites]

I know this thread is outdated, but... I wish I could favourite some things, and bookmark others. And categorize my bookmarks also. I just think it would be nice.
posted by windykites at 7:06 AM on May 31, 2013