Suggestion: Change default search behavior

September 16, 2002 12:12 AM

I noticed this thread (lofi link--in case it doesn't last) earlier and noticed that the poster, BarneyFifesBullet, mentioned that he'd searched for the topic and hadn't found it. A cursory search, however, turned up that it had, in fact, been posted a few months earlier. Long story short, I noticed that the default setting when you use the search function on MeFi sets the drop-down menu to "in the past month" which seems like it could be the culprit in a case like this where the poster seems to have searched unsuccessfully for a previously-posted link. It doesn't seem like something that would be frightfully hard to chance, and it might save us a few double posts...
posted by The God Complex to Feature Requests at 12:12 AM (22 comments total)

And I apologize in advance to BarneyFifesBullet if it seems like I'm trying to call him out for an honest mistake that he already made amends for. It was just a recent example that fit my suggestion.
posted by The God Complex at 12:14 AM on September 16, 2002

Oh, and sorry for all the noticing (haha, my professors might kill me for something so stylistically void), but it's late and I haven't slept much lately.
posted by The God Complex at 12:16 AM on September 16, 2002

Someone named "God Complex" really shouldn't sleep at all, should they?

Yes, I agree with your observation (and just remember I said that when it comes time to judge whether my heart is lighter than a feather). The Google search seems easier to me, and more thorough, but changing the default for the onsite search would probably make a big difference.
posted by taz at 2:01 AM on September 16, 2002

I could be wrong, but if you enter the main link for your FPP in the box labeled link (where Matt and God intended you to enter it), doesn't it check and see if the link has already been entered or not?

This isn't a catch all, of course, but I suspect if BarneyFifesBullets had entered the bloghotornot url in that box, he would not have been able to double post.

It does seem a shame to lose formatting options, but keeping the link at the start of the post might help limit double posts. Though, again, I could be wrong.
posted by Joey Michaels at 3:43 AM on September 16, 2002

I try not to sleep, but its so hard these days.

I'm sorry, but BFB seems to post inane shit on various occasions. Does he leave his machine un-secure and allow various and sundry riff-raff in? Or maybe he's even more jaded then the British MeFi contingent. ducks
posted by insomnyuk at 3:59 AM on September 16, 2002

*ducks*
posted by insomnyuk at 3:59 AM on September 16, 2002

*geese*

and someone named insomnyuk should be staying awake wondering if God Complex has fallen asleep.
posted by taz at 4:06 AM on September 16, 2002

It's no trick to change the default selection— I think it's at "past month" to reduce the load on the server.
posted by yerfatma at 4:40 AM on September 16, 2002

I'm going to write up a guide to posting (and how to prevent double posts) this week, which should prevent most of these situations.
posted by mathowie (staff) at 8:14 AM on September 16, 2002

I'm going to write up a guide to posting (and how to prevent double posts) this week, which should prevent most of these situations.

If people read it.
posted by timeistight at 8:22 AM on September 16, 2002

The mob will enforce, timeistight.
posted by SpecialK at 10:24 AM on September 16, 2002

The mob will enforce

Who's keeping that tagline list?
posted by timeistight at 10:55 AM on September 16, 2002

The mob will enforce

**opens torch and noose stand**
posted by jonmc at 11:13 AM on September 16, 2002

Heh. Noose Stand. Accidental Pun.

Noose Stand, News Stand...geddit?

Ah, the hell with it.
posted by jonmc at 11:14 AM on September 16, 2002

//suddenly wakes up// Yeah, where's the tagline collection? I think I remember in another MeTa thread someone mentioned they'd been keeping a running count, but I don't remember who it was.
posted by redshoes3 at 12:06 PM on September 16, 2002

I'll be very careful not to doublepost, jonmc. After all, no noose is good news.
posted by Nicolae Carpathia at 12:46 PM on September 16, 2002

That was, of course, said with cotton balls tucked in my cheeks. As in, "Yeah, Vinnie, da mob will enforce, capice?"
posted by SpecialK at 1:30 PM on September 16, 2002

My shoe size is 10.

Y'know, for the cement.
posted by eyeballkid at 4:26 PM on September 16, 2002

Yeah, where's the tagline collection? I think I remember in another MeTa thread someone mentioned they'd been keeping a running count, but I don't remember who it was.

If you do remember, let me know, because I am working on collating all of these into a list and would hate to think that someone has already done it. Man, there are a lot of those suckers! I hope to be able to put the complete list on-line in the next couple of days.
posted by dg at 12:43 AM on September 17, 2002

Tagline Threads:

24 January 2000

16 March 2000 (Although this started out about t-shirt designs)

19 January 2002 (Ditto, re: shirts)
posted by tra at 4:56 PM on September 17, 2002

Thanks tra - I have found these. The biggest problem with ferreting out all the suggested taglines is that they are presented in different ways such as MetaFilter: xxx, New tagline: xxx MeFi: xxx etc. Needs repeated searches to find the different versions. Getting there, though.
posted by dg at 5:11 PM on September 17, 2002

I never MetaFilter I didn't like.
posted by Nicolae Carpathia at 6:23 AM on September 18, 2002