Unflagging enthusiasm with fat fingers February 13, 2014 7:19 PM Subscribe
I flagged something today while reading on my mobile, that five seconds later I realised I did not need to flag for the reason I gave. I could not unflag the comment and I fretted over this for ten minutes guiltily. Previously I have also flagged and favourited things by accident because of the fat fingers/tiny screen while reading metafilter on my phone.
Is it technically and/or operationally possible to change the "Flagged" text to a link to either undo the flag/change it or to go straight to the moderators contact page? Or perhaps a "Scourge thyself, blamer of innocents" button would work for me. I'm posting to metatalk because I don't know if this is just a me being dumb on my phone issue or others would also like this added.
The flag just means that mods take a look at it, they still use their judgement as to whether delete something or let it stay. I have certainly flagged and moved on and not everything that gets flagged gets deleted.
posted by ActingTheGoat at 7:32 PM on February 13, 2014
posted by ActingTheGoat at 7:32 PM on February 13, 2014
In our own minds, the significance of our conquests and our mistakes is probably out of proportion to the reality of their importance.
Sleep well.
posted by HuronBob at 8:12 PM on February 13, 2014 [15 favorites]
Sleep well.
posted by HuronBob at 8:12 PM on February 13, 2014 [15 favorites]
I've done this too and would like a unflag button but so far none of my misflags seem to have resulted in a catastrophe.
posted by Jacqueline at 9:28 PM on February 13, 2014
posted by Jacqueline at 9:28 PM on February 13, 2014
Yeah, flag it and move on means flag it and MOVE ON.
posted by notyou at 10:32 PM on February 13, 2014 [1 favorite]
posted by notyou at 10:32 PM on February 13, 2014 [1 favorite]
I've often wished for a similar feature, but since we have human mods rather than robo-mods managing the flag queue, it's not going to do any lasting damage.
posted by the latin mouse at 11:34 PM on February 13, 2014
posted by the latin mouse at 11:34 PM on February 13, 2014
While I agree that its not a huge deal (I think I have done it more than once) it would be nice to undo. I'm guessing for the mods though that they get an email saying "x has flagged y post for z reasons" and thats probably what they pay attention to, and it probably wouldn't be super great for them to get a follow up email 5 minutes later saying "x has now unflagged y post" as they've probably already looked at the post in question.
posted by Cannon Fodder at 11:41 PM on February 13, 2014 [2 favorites]
posted by Cannon Fodder at 11:41 PM on February 13, 2014 [2 favorites]
Given that I also have done this in the last 24 hours I wonder how much meaningless noise is generated every day. At least it's spread out across comments I guess....
posted by Tell Me No Lies at 12:13 AM on February 14, 2014 [1 favorite]
posted by Tell Me No Lies at 12:13 AM on February 14, 2014 [1 favorite]
On mobile I flag almost everything I favourite thanks to my fat fingers. I rationalise that I'm giving praise but also a stern message of "could do better". You don't want people getting to carried away with themselves.
posted by MuffinMan at 12:28 AM on February 14, 2014 [14 favorites]
posted by MuffinMan at 12:28 AM on February 14, 2014 [14 favorites]
An extra flag here or there is no big deal so don't worry about that.
Oh. As if.
The namby-pamby lack of enforcement of rules 'round this place since Obama got elected gets under my craw, quite frankly.
posted by PareidoliaticBoy at 1:28 AM on February 14, 2014 [4 favorites]
Oh. As if.
The namby-pamby lack of enforcement of rules 'round this place since Obama got elected gets under my craw, quite frankly.
posted by PareidoliaticBoy at 1:28 AM on February 14, 2014 [4 favorites]
I could see a user page/tab corresponding to the Posts/Comments/Favorited activity pages, but for Flags one has made, being useful. Perhaps an "undo" selection for each flag would be easier in that context.
The URL would be http://www.metafilter.com/activity/[usernumber]/flags/mefi/ to accompany the existing http://www.metafilter.com/activity/[usernumber]/posts/mefi/ etc.
But this is a pony of another color.
posted by Celsius1414 at 1:46 AM on February 14, 2014
The URL would be http://www.metafilter.com/activity/[usernumber]/flags/mefi/ to accompany the existing http://www.metafilter.com/activity/[usernumber]/posts/mefi/ etc.
But this is a pony of another color.
posted by Celsius1414 at 1:46 AM on February 14, 2014
you need to put your fat fingers on a diet. finger obesity is a serious health concern. my slim fingers have never, ever....EVAH....misttoipt anything
Seriously, echoing pb's comment. Over the years, it has been the basic response that hitting a flag incorrectly is not a big deal. It happens and the number of flags a comment or post receives is not the complete barometer in deciding whether it will be deleted.
Now if you do it 100 times a day, then there could be a problem....a larger problem than fat fingers btw.
posted by lampshade at 3:19 AM on February 14, 2014
Seriously, echoing pb's comment. Over the years, it has been the basic response that hitting a flag incorrectly is not a big deal. It happens and the number of flags a comment or post receives is not the complete barometer in deciding whether it will be deleted.
Now if you do it 100 times a day, then there could be a problem....a larger problem than fat fingers btw.
posted by lampshade at 3:19 AM on February 14, 2014
I am always very careful around the flag button, because it creates a mental image for me of strident alarms and rotating red and blue beacons in Metafilter HQ, with clouds of liquid O2 wisping as the missiles are fueled.
But that's just me.
posted by pjern at 4:31 AM on February 14, 2014 [3 favorites]
But that's just me.
posted by pjern at 4:31 AM on February 14, 2014 [3 favorites]
Yeah, I would say that this is a thing that would make the process way more complicated in the name of simplifying things. From our end, we can't have a flag just disappearing because then we would be like, wait, what just happened? Did another mod clear this flag? Did I clear the flag by accident? Did I imagine there was a flag? Is there a glitch in the flag queue? If we knew that people could delete their own flags, we'd still need to know that this is what indeed happened, so pb would have to come up with some system of showing us that a flag had been withdrawn, maybe by changing the color or by some other signal, and also force a reloading of the flag queue whenever that happened. But what if we'd already acted on the flag? He'd need to sort it out so that there was then a separate process, and flags that had already been dismissed wouldn't trigger a reload, etc. And other stuff I'm not even thinking of.
In other words, we prefer to have pb slaving away on the current projects that are going to be more useful for everyone, since this is one of those things that just wouldn't yield very much utility compared to the effort to design and code it all up. If we occasionally see something flagged and it looks totally fine to us, we figure it might be a misflag, no big deal. If people have any worries about it, they can contact us with a quick "oops!", and that's also no big deal.
posted by taz (staff) at 4:39 AM on February 14, 2014
In other words, we prefer to have pb slaving away on the current projects that are going to be more useful for everyone, since this is one of those things that just wouldn't yield very much utility compared to the effort to design and code it all up. If we occasionally see something flagged and it looks totally fine to us, we figure it might be a misflag, no big deal. If people have any worries about it, they can contact us with a quick "oops!", and that's also no big deal.
posted by taz (staff) at 4:39 AM on February 14, 2014
There's no use fixing a problem for the mods that they don't have.
I wear a size 15 wedding ring. I'm giving you moderators fair warning: there's a greater than 50% chance that any flag I submit from a mobile device is complete bullshit.
posted by double block and bleed at 4:54 AM on February 14, 2014 [1 favorite]
I wear a size 15 wedding ring. I'm giving you moderators fair warning: there's a greater than 50% chance that any flag I submit from a mobile device is complete bullshit.
posted by double block and bleed at 4:54 AM on February 14, 2014 [1 favorite]
From our end, we can't have a flag just disappearing because then we would be like, wait, what just happened? Did another mod clear this flag? Did I clear the flag by accident? Did I imagine there was a flag? Is there a glitch in the flag queue?
Yo I'm pretty good with concurrency I can help you guys out. May need to develop CAS-capable brain implants.
posted by save alive nothing that breatheth at 5:18 AM on February 14, 2014
Yo I'm pretty good with concurrency I can help you guys out. May need to develop CAS-capable brain implants.
posted by save alive nothing that breatheth at 5:18 AM on February 14, 2014
One misplaced flag is of no significance, unless it was on my comment, in which case your remorse is a punishment from God for being a tale-bearing snitch, you flagger.
posted by Segundus at 5:38 AM on February 14, 2014 [4 favorites]
posted by Segundus at 5:38 AM on February 14, 2014 [4 favorites]
...we prefer to have pb slaving away on the current projects...
Great, now everyone will have to watch another HR video.
posted by Brandon Blatcher at 5:53 AM on February 14, 2014 [2 favorites]
Great, now everyone will have to watch another HR video.
posted by Brandon Blatcher at 5:53 AM on February 14, 2014 [2 favorites]
it seems like some people really fret over the flag reason. it's my understanding that except for "fantastic," "double," and "html error" the other flag options are basically interchangeable. if you want to flag something as noise and instead flag it as derail or sexism/racism, the mods are still going to get the message that you flagged it.
posted by nadawi at 6:24 AM on February 14, 2014
posted by nadawi at 6:24 AM on February 14, 2014
As an inveterate favoriteer and frequent mobile user, I do think the flag and favorite buttons could stand to be a little farther apart on mobile. Even just "padding-right: 0.5em;" added to the favorite span might be enough.
posted by ob1quixote at 6:25 AM on February 14, 2014 [4 favorites]
posted by ob1quixote at 6:25 AM on February 14, 2014 [4 favorites]
i guess i don't understand how people are accidentally flagging by trying to hit favorite. i get that it's easy to pop the flag drop down that way - but it takes extra clicks to actually pick a flag reason.
posted by nadawi at 6:28 AM on February 14, 2014
posted by nadawi at 6:28 AM on February 14, 2014
I have flagged something and then thought better of it. I dropped regretful emails to the mods and received very nice "no worries!" emails in return.
posted by cooker girl at 6:39 AM on February 14, 2014
posted by cooker girl at 6:39 AM on February 14, 2014
...we prefer to have pb slaving away on the current projects...
flagged.....just because.....of summting
film at 11
posted by lampshade at 7:38 AM on February 14, 2014
flagged.....just because.....of summting
film at 11
posted by lampshade at 7:38 AM on February 14, 2014
As folks have already said, mods are generally savvy enough to ignore flags that don't make any sense. Just because something is flagged doesn't mean they'll take action; it just means that they're going to look at it and see if anything needs to be done. The flag category sometimes helps guide them to look for a particular kind of problem, but generally once they know a potential problem exists they can find it even if the category doesn't make sense. They know we don't hit the right category 100% of the time, and that the flag categories don't cover every possible situation*. Like everything else mod-related here, there's a lot of judgment and discretion involved.
Also, if you make a flagging error or if you're just unsure that the mods are going to understand your flag, you can always drop them a note at the contact form.
*I think this would make an awesome April Fool's thing.
posted by Scientist at 7:57 AM on February 14, 2014
Also, if you make a flagging error or if you're just unsure that the mods are going to understand your flag, you can always drop them a note at the contact form.
*I think this would make an awesome April Fool's thing.
posted by Scientist at 7:57 AM on February 14, 2014
I am always very careful around the flag button, because it creates a mental image for me of strident alarms and rotating red and blue beacons in Metafilter HQ, with clouds of liquid O2 wisping as the missiles are fueled.
But that's just me.
It's totally not just you. When I've been in public transit and accidentally hit the flag button (and this just bringing up the menu, mind you, not actually completing the action), I'm sure that my horrified gasp has made folks on the train/bus think that I got a text saying somebody had died or something.
posted by MCMikeNamara at 8:45 AM on February 14, 2014 [2 favorites]
But that's just me.
It's totally not just you. When I've been in public transit and accidentally hit the flag button (and this just bringing up the menu, mind you, not actually completing the action), I'm sure that my horrified gasp has made folks on the train/bus think that I got a text saying somebody had died or something.
posted by MCMikeNamara at 8:45 AM on February 14, 2014 [2 favorites]
I do think the flag and favorite buttons could stand to be a little farther apart on mobile.
I have also wondered if this would be possible. Also if the add favourite button could be further away from the favourites already added [X favourites (space) +] because I'm constantly trying to add but instead repeatedly bring up the list of people who got there before me.
unless you can you get liposuction for fingers because that would solve everything. Can we start a fat fingers surgery fund?
posted by billiebee at 9:06 AM on February 14, 2014 [4 favorites]
I have also wondered if this would be possible. Also if the add favourite button could be further away from the favourites already added [X favourites (space) +] because I'm constantly trying to add but instead repeatedly bring up the list of people who got there before me.
unless you can you get liposuction for fingers because that would solve everything. Can we start a fat fingers surgery fund?
posted by billiebee at 9:06 AM on February 14, 2014 [4 favorites]
You have have my finger fat when you extract it from my cold, dead hand.
posted by double block and bleed at 9:33 AM on February 14, 2014 [1 favorite]
posted by double block and bleed at 9:33 AM on February 14, 2014 [1 favorite]
In case it's helpful, this is what the flag interface looks like to the mods. This is what the entire admin panel looks like. Here are some helpful tags if you are a MeFi mod in a parallel universe and would like to order pizza from the admin panel.
It looks like there's a distinct lack of flashing alarms, and things that are only flagged once are on the bottom (I think the mods have said that on a busy day stuff with a single flag in MeFi or MeTa might not even get looked at?), so unless you and several other people all accidentally flag something, it's not going to take away attention from problematic things that are getting more flags.
posted by beryllium at 9:40 AM on February 14, 2014
It looks like there's a distinct lack of flashing alarms, and things that are only flagged once are on the bottom (I think the mods have said that on a busy day stuff with a single flag in MeFi or MeTa might not even get looked at?), so unless you and several other people all accidentally flag something, it's not going to take away attention from problematic things that are getting more flags.
posted by beryllium at 9:40 AM on February 14, 2014
I do think the flag and favorite buttons could stand to be a little farther apart on mobile.
Yeah, we've been talking about this for a while. I think it's something we'll try. It won't be perfect for everyone, but I do think it will help with some misclicks.
posted by pb (staff) at 9:56 AM on February 14, 2014 [5 favorites]
Yeah, we've been talking about this for a while. I think it's something we'll try. It won't be perfect for everyone, but I do think it will help with some misclicks.
posted by pb (staff) at 9:56 AM on February 14, 2014 [5 favorites]
I would like to request that pb add more flashing alarms to all the pages. They make it so much more exciting!
posted by Wretch729 at 10:02 AM on February 14, 2014
posted by Wretch729 at 10:02 AM on February 14, 2014
wait, what just happened? Did another mod clear this flag? Did I clear the flag by accident? Did I imagine there was a flag? Is there a glitch in the flag queue?
Gaslighting the mods with a false flag operation.
posted by yoink at 10:20 AM on February 14, 2014 [4 favorites]
Gaslighting the mods with a false flag operation.
posted by yoink at 10:20 AM on February 14, 2014 [4 favorites]
I would like to request that pb add a MeTa flagellation study course.
If participants do not achieve a qualifying grade, then their user number should be changed to something larger than the postMefilockout 15k (or whatever the hell it is)
thattll lern em.
/eyeroll.jpg
posted by lampshade at 10:22 AM on February 14, 2014
If participants do not achieve a qualifying grade, then their user number should be changed to something larger than the postMefilockout 15k (or whatever the hell it is)
thattll lern em.
/eyeroll.jpg
posted by lampshade at 10:22 AM on February 14, 2014
>> flashing alarms
heh heh....yes.. this would work for me!
[snort!]
posted by lampshade at 10:23 AM on February 14, 2014
heh heh....yes.. this would work for me!
[snort!]
posted by lampshade at 10:23 AM on February 14, 2014
We just added a bit of space between the favorite and flag links on mobile in MetaTalk only. Let's try it out here for a bit and if it works ok we'll move it to other sites.
posted by pb (staff) at 10:38 AM on February 14, 2014 [3 favorites]
posted by pb (staff) at 10:38 AM on February 14, 2014 [3 favorites]
That's great and all but is it just me or does the [!] look a little lonely now? although I'm the sort of person who can't leave a solitary bean behind in the tin so I may be on my own in this
posted by billiebee at 11:01 AM on February 14, 2014 [4 favorites]
posted by billiebee at 11:01 AM on February 14, 2014 [4 favorites]
By which, of course, I mean thanks pb
posted by billiebee at 11:02 AM on February 14, 2014 [2 favorites]
posted by billiebee at 11:02 AM on February 14, 2014 [2 favorites]
I don't like the space.
posted by oceanjesse at 11:20 AM on February 14, 2014
posted by oceanjesse at 11:20 AM on February 14, 2014
I think there's a slippery slope here because another UX issue of "I always click on the list of people that favorited things" isn't solved by this added space, and adding even more space means that metafilter will just end up full of more and more space, and it will take such a long time to communicate until the universe starts to shrink.
posted by oceanjesse at 11:24 AM on February 14, 2014
posted by oceanjesse at 11:24 AM on February 14, 2014
Maybe having the [+] in front of "posted by" and the [!] after "February 14th" would be more elegant. I've never clicked edit by accident.
posted by oceanjesse at 11:26 AM on February 14, 2014 [1 favorite]
posted by oceanjesse at 11:26 AM on February 14, 2014 [1 favorite]
Just to offer a dissenting view, I quite like the space and really appreciate that pb is willing to try it out.
I did the exact fat-fingering as the OP but in reverse (favorited when I meant to flag something that was basically a 'fuck you' to another user--oh man, I was horrified) just yesterday so definitely see the utility.
posted by librarylis at 12:18 PM on February 14, 2014 [1 favorite]
I did the exact fat-fingering as the OP but in reverse (favorited when I meant to flag something that was basically a 'fuck you' to another user--oh man, I was horrified) just yesterday so definitely see the utility.
posted by librarylis at 12:18 PM on February 14, 2014 [1 favorite]
Maybe having the [+] in front of "posted by"...
Sorry, we're not going to change the byline. Having "posted by" in a predictable location after each comment is a very important part of the design here. Adding a favorite count in front of that would make the line unpredictable. Having the + next to the favorite count is also an important part of the design.
We're not going to solve all problems with this change. We're just hoping to spare a few misclicks.
posted by pb (staff) at 12:19 PM on February 14, 2014 [2 favorites]
Sorry, we're not going to change the byline. Having "posted by" in a predictable location after each comment is a very important part of the design here. Adding a favorite count in front of that would make the line unpredictable. Having the + next to the favorite count is also an important part of the design.
We're not going to solve all problems with this change. We're just hoping to spare a few misclicks.
posted by pb (staff) at 12:19 PM on February 14, 2014 [2 favorites]
We're not going to solve all problems with this change.
THANKS OBAMA!
posted by blue_beetle at 12:51 PM on February 14, 2014 [8 favorites]
THANKS OBAMA!
posted by blue_beetle at 12:51 PM on February 14, 2014 [8 favorites]
I like the space. I admit it looks a little odd, but maybe that's because its new, and change is scary.
I don't want finger lipsuction but I have pondered a fingertip nub implant. I could get different shaped nubs on each finger so I had a complete artist toolkit - chisel tip on the ring finger, round brush on the index finger, square on the middle finger.
posted by Joh at 2:17 PM on February 14, 2014 [3 favorites]
I don't want finger lipsuction but I have pondered a fingertip nub implant. I could get different shaped nubs on each finger so I had a complete artist toolkit - chisel tip on the ring finger, round brush on the index finger, square on the middle finger.
posted by Joh at 2:17 PM on February 14, 2014 [3 favorites]
I think we're still very much working on it, but over the past few months I've been a bit annoyed that to favorite/flag something on my phone, I almost always need to zoom first. I'd say Twitter does an amazing job with these kind of important, but tiny controls in their app, so eventually we'll probably try and mimic that, making click targets easier to hit and easier to understand while hopefully preventing mistakes.
posted by mathowie (staff) at 2:29 PM on February 14, 2014 [2 favorites]
posted by mathowie (staff) at 2:29 PM on February 14, 2014 [2 favorites]
It does look a little funny, but I think the space is a vast improvement for mobile users. I rarely mis-click on the favorite list, but I do quite frequently mis-click on the flag button.
posted by ob1quixote at 2:38 PM on February 14, 2014 [1 favorite]
posted by ob1quixote at 2:38 PM on February 14, 2014 [1 favorite]
If you don't know about it, swipe to favorite is pretty much the greatest thing ever.
posted by double block and bleed at 2:43 PM on February 14, 2014
posted by double block and bleed at 2:43 PM on February 14, 2014
I love swipe to favourite, but every so often it seems to disable itself and I have to go enable it again. Also, you can't use it in recent activity.
posted by billiebee at 3:03 PM on February 14, 2014
posted by billiebee at 3:03 PM on February 14, 2014
When you enable swipe to favorite the site sets a cookie that says, "this person wants to swipe to favorite". If that cookies disappears for any reason like logging out, you'll need to re-enable it.
We're not thrilled with swipe to favorite on our end because you just have to know about it. It's hard to discover. Some people accidentally trigger it via scrolling, and browsers are doing more built-in swiping now. Some browsers have swipe-right as a back button. So swipe right to favorite is starting to compete with that which causes more problems.
We'd rather focus on making the visual controls better as matt mentioned.
posted by pb (staff) at 3:23 PM on February 14, 2014
We're not thrilled with swipe to favorite on our end because you just have to know about it. It's hard to discover. Some people accidentally trigger it via scrolling, and browsers are doing more built-in swiping now. Some browsers have swipe-right as a back button. So swipe right to favorite is starting to compete with that which causes more problems.
We'd rather focus on making the visual controls better as matt mentioned.
posted by pb (staff) at 3:23 PM on February 14, 2014
I have more problems with the [+] being so close to the "5 favorites" link. Especially on my phone, I frequently end up clicking the "5 favorites" instead of the [+]. It's literally the worst thing ever.
posted by ian1977 at 3:50 PM on February 14, 2014 [4 favorites]
posted by ian1977 at 3:50 PM on February 14, 2014 [4 favorites]
I like the extra space between the [+] and the [!] on mobile. Much easier to select and doesn't adversely affect the look or functionality of the mobile site.
posted by moxiequz at 5:02 PM on February 14, 2014 [1 favorite]
posted by moxiequz at 5:02 PM on February 14, 2014 [1 favorite]
o.m.g.
A space! A space! You added a space!!! Wooooo!
posted by zarq at 5:18 PM on February 14, 2014 [2 favorites]
A space! A space! You added a space!!! Wooooo!
posted by zarq at 5:18 PM on February 14, 2014 [2 favorites]
Ooh, fancy! At first it looked weird, but then I got used to it, and now I see them as weird faces, like this
[+] ___ [!]
But without the mouth.
posted by filthy light thief at 5:38 PM on February 14, 2014 [4 favorites]
[+] ___ [!]
But without the mouth.
posted by filthy light thief at 5:38 PM on February 14, 2014 [4 favorites]
Since we're discussing flag anxiety, can I just say that I seldom flag things, but every time I do, I immediately have a moment of panic in which I wonder if I've become Floyd R. Turbo, American, without realizing it.
posted by FelliniBlank at 6:20 PM on February 14, 2014
posted by FelliniBlank at 6:20 PM on February 14, 2014
Unfortunate that it ends up pushing both the favorite and flag elements onto a line by themselves on my Nexus 4, but I prefer a bit of visual inelegance to a bit of functional inelegance.
posted by wierdo at 10:21 PM on February 14, 2014
posted by wierdo at 10:21 PM on February 14, 2014
I do this a lot and I'm glad it's being looked at. To show my approval I will flag this thread as racist/sexist/offensive.
posted by Joe in Australia at 5:11 AM on February 15, 2014 [7 favorites]
posted by Joe in Australia at 5:11 AM on February 15, 2014 [7 favorites]
Never flagged before, flagged all the mod comments, great fun!
posted by sammyo at 6:58 AM on February 15, 2014 [1 favorite]
posted by sammyo at 6:58 AM on February 15, 2014 [1 favorite]
What if you wrote a smartphone app for metafilter that cost five dollars in the app store and made an account for you and used the volume buttons for favorites that would be so easy problem solved
posted by oceanjesse at 8:36 AM on February 15, 2014 [1 favorite]
posted by oceanjesse at 8:36 AM on February 15, 2014 [1 favorite]
Oh my god, please yes! Add an undo flag option! I had to give up browsing the site using my drawing tablet (curse you, RSI) because I'd accidentally hit the flag button all the damn time. So annoying. I cringe thinking back on my early days here, when I didn't know you were supposed to contact the mods to let them know you hit flag by mistake. Ugh.
posted by LuckySeven~ at 10:19 AM on February 15, 2014
posted by LuckySeven~ at 10:19 AM on February 15, 2014
No big deal, LuckySeven~. You're not supposed to contact the mods to let them know about mistaken flags. If you do, that's fine. If not, that's fine too. There's no expectation on our end that you'll contact us about mistaken flags.
posted by pb (staff) at 10:52 AM on February 15, 2014
posted by pb (staff) at 10:52 AM on February 15, 2014
I have made flag mistakes before. And I've even been contacted by the mods for clarification after particularly egregious flags. I always figure that an otherwise fine post or comment is not going to get deleted just because I flagged it. And if the mods say that rogue flags don't add a ton of workload on them, then, well, why risk making it worse by trying to fix it.
posted by 256 at 2:08 PM on February 15, 2014
posted by 256 at 2:08 PM on February 15, 2014
Noticed the new space in the thread before getting to the part where it was discussed/introduced. Spoilers, I guess?
Really liking it so far.
posted by RainyJay at 9:15 PM on February 15, 2014
Really liking it so far.
posted by RainyJay at 9:15 PM on February 15, 2014
It's been a few days and the space is growing on me.
posted by oceanjesse at 8:11 AM on February 16, 2014
posted by oceanjesse at 8:11 AM on February 16, 2014
The space and me - BFF.
Who are all these pointy-fingered folk who never take public transportation? What fiendish one percent?
posted by Lesser Shrew at 9:19 AM on February 17, 2014 [4 favorites]
Who are all these pointy-fingered folk who never take public transportation? What fiendish one percent?
posted by Lesser Shrew at 9:19 AM on February 17, 2014 [4 favorites]
weird faces
Reminds me of bill the cat. ACK PFTHH.
Anyway, I love the change. Please add a space BEFORE the + as well so it would be
[X favorites +] [!]
posted by chasles at 11:50 AM on February 17, 2014
Reminds me of bill the cat. ACK PFTHH.
Anyway, I love the change. Please add a space BEFORE the + as well so it would be
[X favorites +] [!]
posted by chasles at 11:50 AM on February 17, 2014
Damnit. My extra demo spaces keep getting removed!!!
posted by chasles at 11:51 AM on February 17, 2014
posted by chasles at 11:51 AM on February 17, 2014
If you want to put in more than one space in a row you can use the non-breaking space HTML entity, like this:
My guess is what you wanted was:
[X favorites +] [!]
We don't have any plans for that right now. We'll see how this change goes first and then consider other tweaks.
posted by pb (staff) at 12:20 PM on February 17, 2014 [1 favorite]
.My guess is what you wanted was:
[X favorites +] [!]
We don't have any plans for that right now. We'll see how this change goes first and then consider other tweaks.
posted by pb (staff) at 12:20 PM on February 17, 2014 [1 favorite]
I just noticed this thread, and checked my phone, and I like the idea of the space between the two buttons, but I really don't like the line break that puts them on a separate line below everything else. Especially where a comment ends the line with just the date. For example, double block and bleed's last comment, for example, ends up looking like this:
Wordswordswordswordswordswordswords
18
[+] [!]
That space and the abrupt favorites/flag space are a little jarring on the mobile end, and create a lot of new, and for me, undesirable spacing between comments, and in some ways makes it feel like those two buttons are more of a focal point. If it was possible to keep them in the same line, but with the new space, it might feel less so. As it is, it feels like a pretty different experience from the non-mobile site, when before I was impressed by how similar mobile and non-mobile use of the site was.
And, yeah, for me, it's not the favorite/flag issue, it's the "I want to favorite this" vs. the annoyance of "no, I reallydidn't want to see who else did" issue. I'm with Charles on this one.
posted by Ghidorah at 1:35 PM on February 17, 2014 [1 favorite]
Wordswordswordswordswordswordswords
18
[+] [!]
That space and the abrupt favorites/flag space are a little jarring on the mobile end, and create a lot of new, and for me, undesirable spacing between comments, and in some ways makes it feel like those two buttons are more of a focal point. If it was possible to keep them in the same line, but with the new space, it might feel less so. As it is, it feels like a pretty different experience from the non-mobile site, when before I was impressed by how similar mobile and non-mobile use of the site was.
And, yeah, for me, it's not the favorite/flag issue, it's the "I want to favorite this" vs. the annoyance of "no, I reallydidn't want to see who else did" issue. I'm with Charles on this one.
posted by Ghidorah at 1:35 PM on February 17, 2014 [1 favorite]
...create a lot of new, and for me, undesirable spacing between comments...
Just to clarify, there's no new linebreak happening here. The only change we're testing is more space between the favorite and flagging links. You can compare MetaTalk with Ask or MeFi to see the difference. Flagging and favorites have always been on their own line in the mobile version.
Bylines have varying line lengths due to the difference in length of usernames. So it's possible that the line will sometimes break like you're describing—it just depends on the font size you have set, the length of the username, and the length of the month name.
posted by pb (staff) at 1:40 PM on February 17, 2014 [2 favorites]
Just to clarify, there's no new linebreak happening here. The only change we're testing is more space between the favorite and flagging links. You can compare MetaTalk with Ask or MeFi to see the difference. Flagging and favorites have always been on their own line in the mobile version.
Bylines have varying line lengths due to the difference in length of usernames. So it's possible that the line will sometimes break like you're describing—it just depends on the font size you have set, the length of the username, and the length of the month name.
posted by pb (staff) at 1:40 PM on February 17, 2014 [2 favorites]
Ya PB that's what I was driving at. Forgot about nbsp, ya know.... Because I'm on mobile.... Anyway, with or without the extra spaced + I still love love love this.
Or a native app.
posted by chasles at 1:55 PM on February 17, 2014
Or a native app.
posted by chasles at 1:55 PM on February 17, 2014
Thanks, pb, I hadn't noticed that. My bad.
Given how rare it is for alterations to be made, I do wish we could test out the space between the favorited by link and the favorite button. I almost never flag by accident, but I regularly end up looking at a list of user names, which necessitates reloading the page, which in turn (very rarely) has unpleasant side effects (auto loading to the 'new' comment I started the thread on, etc.).
posted by Ghidorah at 1:58 PM on February 17, 2014 [3 favorites]
Given how rare it is for alterations to be made, I do wish we could test out the space between the favorited by link and the favorite button. I almost never flag by accident, but I regularly end up looking at a list of user names, which necessitates reloading the page, which in turn (very rarely) has unpleasant side effects (auto loading to the 'new' comment I started the thread on, etc.).
posted by Ghidorah at 1:58 PM on February 17, 2014 [3 favorites]
Wordswordswordswordswordswordswords
posted by double block and bleed at 7:09 PM on February 17, 2014 [1 favorite]
posted by double block and bleed at 7:09 PM on February 17, 2014 [1 favorite]
I'm pretty sure you meant
Metafilter:Wordswordswordswordswordswordswords
posted by Ghidorah at 8:09 PM on February 17, 2014 [3 favorites]
Metafilter:Wordswordswordswordswordswordswords
posted by Ghidorah at 8:09 PM on February 17, 2014 [3 favorites]
I would love a little extra space between the favorite button and the favorited-by link as well, since I find that I actually end up accidentally hitting "x favorites" a lot more often than [!]. However, I think that that may be because when I tap "+" I err to the left a little bit, since getting a favorites list isn't as big of a potential mistake as accidentally flagging something as racist or whatever. Now that there's a bit of extra wiggle room on the right, I bet that I'll lean my finger a little more to the right now in order to take advantage of that extra space and the problem will go away.
Out of curiosity, is there a way for the mods to track the number of times that users clicked "x favorites" followed by "back" followed by "+" in a given time period? It would be neat to see a couple of things regarding that data, if so: one, do mobile users do that more often than desktop users (suggesting that they're clicking "x favorites" by mistake more often than desktop users; presumably some of that behavior is intentional but the intentional) and two, does the rate of that behavior drop with this change, either starting now on MetaTalk relative to the rest of the site, or across the site as a whole once the change gets fully rolled out?
While this change has been more about accidental flagging than accidental who-already-favorited-this checking, looking into those usage statistics would provide some quantitative evidence that the change is working, and that mis-clicking in general has been reduced around the "+" link for mobile users.
posted by Scientist at 6:16 AM on February 18, 2014
Out of curiosity, is there a way for the mods to track the number of times that users clicked "x favorites" followed by "back" followed by "+" in a given time period? It would be neat to see a couple of things regarding that data, if so: one, do mobile users do that more often than desktop users (suggesting that they're clicking "x favorites" by mistake more often than desktop users; presumably some of that behavior is intentional but the intentional) and two, does the rate of that behavior drop with this change, either starting now on MetaTalk relative to the rest of the site, or across the site as a whole once the change gets fully rolled out?
While this change has been more about accidental flagging than accidental who-already-favorited-this checking, looking into those usage statistics would provide some quantitative evidence that the change is working, and that mis-clicking in general has been reduced around the "+" link for mobile users.
posted by Scientist at 6:16 AM on February 18, 2014
Oh, and at least in the Firefox browser for Android (my favorite Android browser, as it happens) you can run Stylish, which should allow you to insert an extra space or two between the "x favorites" and "+" link if you want it. Not sure about solutions for other mobile browsers.
posted by Scientist at 6:21 AM on February 18, 2014
posted by Scientist at 6:21 AM on February 18, 2014
Out of curiosity, is there a way for the mods to track the number of times that users clicked "x favorites" followed by "back" followed by "+" in a given time period?
No, there isn't a great way to do that. We can look at number of pageviews pretty easily, but tracking a single user though a series of pages isn't as easy. It's definitely possible to design and set up a way to track an individual user at that level. With more developers we could take more time to design and run those sorts of things.
posted by pb (staff) at 10:35 AM on February 18, 2014
No, there isn't a great way to do that. We can look at number of pageviews pretty easily, but tracking a single user though a series of pages isn't as easy. It's definitely possible to design and set up a way to track an individual user at that level. With more developers we could take more time to design and run those sorts of things.
posted by pb (staff) at 10:35 AM on February 18, 2014
With more developers we could take more time to design and run those sorts of things.
Someone's angling for a minion.
posted by PMdixon at 10:51 AM on February 18, 2014 [3 favorites]
Someone's angling for a minion.
posted by PMdixon at 10:51 AM on February 18, 2014 [3 favorites]
I posted this in a more recent thread but have had this one pointed out, so I'll say it again: this is terrific and I'd love to see it sitewide.
posted by gingerest at 6:44 PM on March 8, 2014 [2 favorites]
posted by gingerest at 6:44 PM on March 8, 2014 [2 favorites]
We just made this live across the other sites today.
posted by pb (staff) at 1:52 PM on March 11, 2014 [1 favorite]
posted by pb (staff) at 1:52 PM on March 11, 2014 [1 favorite]
We're still talking about Recent Activity. I think we probably will make the de-linked 'favorite' change there. But we're going to see how it goes on thread pages for a bit before we make any more changes.
posted by pb (staff) at 2:04 PM on March 11, 2014
posted by pb (staff) at 2:04 PM on March 11, 2014
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On your phone, if you accidentally bump the flag option, just click the [x] next to the drop down menu when it opens. Or click 'Done' to close the menu options. You don't have to make a choice on the flagging menu if you didn't mean to open it.
posted by pb (staff) at 7:25 PM on February 13, 2014 [1 favorite]