Comments on 2854 | MetaTalk

So whenever I access MeFi, and it is supposed to have that nice little new comments next to the thread to let me know how many new comments have been posted, it does one of the following:

1. Picks a random number.
2. Never refreshes.
3. Relates wild tales of sexual debauchery with my mother.

OK, so the last one only rarely. But seriously, what's up with that?
posted by lazaruslong to bugs at 7:08 PM (47 comments total)

Post your browser and operating system info.
posted by riffola at 7:09 PM on December 11, 2002

hmm... Windows XP Home 2k2 and IE 6.0.26 (yeah i know, i should be using opera or something....i just can't help it.)
posted by lazaruslong at 7:12 PM on December 11, 2002

mine never refreshes. because i never log out.
posted by quonsar at 7:13 PM on December 11, 2002

*gulp* We have to log out for it to refresh?

Seriously though, thanks quon. Back to business.
posted by lazaruslong at 7:21 PM on December 11, 2002

(runs and hides from the MeFi elitists who will now flame me to a crisp for an irrelevant fpp)
posted by lazaruslong at 7:22 PM on December 11, 2002

Metafilter: Yo, lazaruslong's mama is SO FAT, that she uses a matress as a maxi pad!

Stan Chin: Daaayaaaamn snap snap!
posted by Stan Chin at 7:28 PM on December 11, 2002

mine never refreshes. because i never log out.

nah, that's not it; I never log out either and mine seems to work just fine. clicking that little refresh/reload button sorta helps, though.
posted by jessamyn at 7:32 PM on December 11, 2002

Ah hah! So it is a bug thingy. The refresh/reload doesn't do the trick for me, though.

Stan: That's just mean. You have no idea how much those matresses cost. It's why my family is so poor. Really, insensitive of you.
posted by lazaruslong at 7:42 PM on December 11, 2002

It works fine for me in both IE and mozilla.

Here's the deal: it relies on session variables that last 15 minutes. That means if you access the site anytime within a 15 minute period, you won't count as a "new" visit, until 15 minutes passes.

One could reload the front page once every 10 minutes and never be considered a new visitor, ever.

That said, from time to time, I notice erratic behavior on my new/old indicators, but it's usually pretty spot-on for me.
posted by mathowie at 7:52 PM on December 11, 2002

Ah. Thanks, mathowie. I think it is the session variable thing. The times when I experience the problems are usually when I just run through all the posts I want to read and comment on, and then lurk for about 5-10 minutes to see if an interesting discussion pops up. That must be it.
posted by lazaruslong at 8:02 PM on December 11, 2002

So this mother of yours, she...~~vibrates~~ is really nice, eh?
posted by ashbury at 8:06 PM on December 11, 2002

I'm sorry lazaruslong, that was really impolite of me, and a "Yo Mama" joke at that! Didn't those go out back in 1995? Why, I would have been better off with a knock knock joke. Hey, speaking of Knock Knock, that's what Metafilter's balls were doing on yo mama's chin last night!

WOOO!!! [okay, I'm done now, really.]
posted by Stan Chin at 8:14 PM on December 11, 2002

Stan, you might want to cut back on the medication a bit. Seriously. The schtick's amusing and all, but getting just a titch annoying, you know?
posted by stavrosthewonderchicken at 8:20 PM on December 11, 2002

Lazaruslong, I don't think this isn an irrelevant FPP. I have had the same question for some time, just never got around to asking.
posted by samuelad at 8:39 PM on December 11, 2002

Here's the deal: it relies on session variables that last 15 minutes.

Would it involve a significantly increased stress on system resources to change this value to 10 minutes? That would eliminate the majority of the problems I've had with this issue over the years, I know.
posted by rushmc at 8:51 PM on December 11, 2002

lazarus, the canonical solution to any problems with your MeFi session (e.g. no comment box, strange CSS effects, etc.) is to log out and back in again. It works more often than you'd think. Anyway, one should always try that before posting to MeTa/bugs.
posted by dhartung at 9:42 PM on December 11, 2002

I'd just like to say that I've never noticed this problem.

On the other hand, if you look at the most recent page-view stats (I think May was the latest available) you'll see that I reloaded the front page nearly 17,000 times, and that was only from work (my home computer has a dynamic IP).

Scary.
posted by mr_crash_davis at 10:23 PM on December 11, 2002

OK, my mistake. It was total requests, not front-page loads. Still, that's a lot of...not working.
posted by mr_crash_davis at 10:27 PM on December 11, 2002

On that same note crash, both Amiga and Atari accessed the site 44 and 16 time respectively.
posted by plemeljr at 10:41 PM on December 11, 2002

dhartung: Duly noted.

As it is, I am glad I posted. I never would have been exposed to Stan's wonderful jokes about my mother's menstrual habits or the proximity of MeFi's genitals to her chin.
posted by lazaruslong at 10:57 PM on December 11, 2002

And interestingly enough, I am incapable of logging out of either metafilter or metatalk. It goes to the "delcookie yes" html line, and then back to the home page, with me still logged in. I checked the prefs for an autologin thingy, but nay. So i guess I am permanently trapped here.

::bangs on computer monitor::

Trapped.
posted by lazaruslong at 11:04 PM on December 11, 2002

Or you could delete the cookies yourself ;)

Clear your temporary interenet files and it should log you out automatically because you don't have any cookies left on your computer.
posted by The God Complex at 11:50 PM on December 11, 2002

Though why anybody would ever leave this site is beyond me. Even MetaTalk is good if you're jonsing for some anal-retentive banter. Or, you know, if you want a little of Stan's sexual skullduggery.
posted by The God Complex at 11:53 PM on December 11, 2002

Lazaruslong: same here.

*tries in vain to whittle up a genuouwine blues song along the lines of "When I woke up this mornin' couldn'y log out; seems like only yesterday I couldn't log out..."

Matt is locking in his most loved and it's great to be a part of that. ;)
posted by MiguelCardoso at 3:09 AM on December 12, 2002

"only yesterday couldn't log in", I meant, dammit.
posted by MiguelCardoso at 3:11 AM on December 12, 2002

not an unneccesary post at all! i drew that conclusion about logging in/out a loooooong time ago. i've never really paid attention to those numbers since. session vars, eh? i learned something new today! how exhausting! i must go lie down now!
posted by quonsar at 4:19 AM on December 12, 2002

Hooray for the MeFi affirmation!

::basks in newfound acceptance::

My life does have meaning!

All joking aside, I'm glad it was helpful to people. I for one learned lots. About....cookies...and tampons...and..well...Miguel can't sing. But i guess that was a known fact.
posted by lazaruslong at 4:23 AM on December 12, 2002

Oh, and I just thought of one more thing:

A nifty little feature I have come across in several weblogs and billboards is the "last post by" indicator. Next to the number of comments, it has a little "the last post to this thread was by [so and so] " thingy. Kind of self-explanatory, I guess.

That would be nice to have on MeFi. Maybe I am alone in that desire, but I harbor it deeeeeeppp down inside anyway, like some secret desire that one would harbor.
posted by lazaruslong at 4:27 AM on December 12, 2002

In this thread, we wouldn't have to update a "last post by" indicator very much.
posted by Mid at 4:42 AM on December 12, 2002

stavros, think you could cut back on playing Mom? It get's just a titch annoying, y'know?
posted by yerfatma at 4:51 AM on December 12, 2002

yerfatma : no.

You got a problem with that?
posted by stavrosthewonderchicken at 5:09 AM on December 12, 2002

To clarify, and perhaps offset the aggressive tone in my off-the-cuff response above, I think it's nonsense to accuse me of 'playing mom' to the extent that I'd have to 'cut back'.

I think Stan's a funny guy, and I like him, based on what I've seen of him so far at MeFi, but I also think that the sort of behaviour mentioned by iconomy in this post in the thread below this one (although referring to pointless 'look at me' posting in doomed threads, but applicable to the incessant smartassing around in Metatalk of late too) is regrettable, and that perhaps it might be a good thing to mention it. I did mention it, in what I thought was a jocular enough way that Stan would not take offense, and we have since been in touch via email, and I don't think he has.

I don't think for a moment that I 'know what's best for MeFi', but if you've been paying attention at all, you'd have seen many attempts by many people in recent months (of decreasing frequency, presumably as people have gotten tired swimming upstream against the chortling chuckleheads) here to voice their disapproval of how Metatalk has seemingly become as much a forum for people to display their attempts (successful and otherwise) at humour as it is anything else. I'm one of those people...I like making funnies and reading them as much as the next guy, but everything in moderation, no?

I will continue, when I see stuff that I think (in my fallible opinion of course) is contributing to making MeFi a Less Good Place, to say something about it.

So, no. I don't think I do play mom, yerfatma, and certainly not frequently enough for it to become a broken record, but I ain't gonna stop, unless Matt asks me to. That's what Metatalk is for.
posted by stavrosthewonderchicken at 5:33 AM on December 12, 2002

metafilter: swimming upstream against the chortling chuckleheads.
posted by quonsar at 6:58 AM on December 12, 2002

dammit, q, you beat me to it.

what a mental image.
posted by gottabefunky at 7:19 AM on December 12, 2002

Stavros is too pretty to be my mom. *blush*

Sorry, I thought I'd take on that tangent as well as the one about making jokes in one fell, misguided swoop.
posted by The God Complex at 8:26 AM on December 12, 2002

Wow...seems like only yesterday that stavros was the humormongering deliquent! The Establishment always wins....
posted by rushmc at 8:45 AM on December 12, 2002

I don't think for a moment that I 'know what's best for MeFi'

a-hem.
posted by four panels at 8:58 AM on December 12, 2002

maybe it's just my imagination but the place seems to have been unusually bad tempered recently. maybe I've just been frequenting the wrong threads. I dunno, maybe it's me...
posted by gravelshoes at 9:04 AM on December 12, 2002

Metatalk has seemingly become as much a forum for people to display their attempts

That's fair enough. Your initial comment read (to me) more like you were trying to address his general commenting style, as though he wasn't playing his role in the great play of MetaFilter as you had envisioned it for him.
posted by yerfatma at 10:02 AM on December 12, 2002

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