New posting page confusion

January 11, 2003 5:29 PM

You are posting a link without a description, or a description without a link, please correct this The links are included, with brackets and tags, in the description as usual since I joined 2-ish years ago. What are we fishing for here?

You forgot to include a title, please correct this Did no such thing, included the text string "poo969" in the Link title: field. What are we fishing for here? Have we been studying bondage-and-discipline languages with Bucky Wirth? Just askin'.

PS, Search Metatalk "please correct this" Nothing was found with that search criteria, try searching again.
posted by jfuller to Etiquette/Policy at 5:29 PM (12 comments total)

What are you talking about? I couldn't be more confused if you used an electrified confusion generator, and set it for maximum confusion.

Perhaps I should post an etiquette/policy question about this post.

Also, if your link had to do with 969 types of poo, I'm not sure I want to see it after all. After all, this isn't Poofilter.
posted by jonson at 5:51 PM on January 11, 2003

> What are you talking about? I couldn't be more confused if
> you used an electrified confusion generator, and set it for
> maximum confusion.

jon, that's what the tinfoil hats are for.

On the other hand I may have condensed my questions just a wee bit too much. N'est-ce pas?

I'm talking about, not exactly error messages, but mefi system-generated BZZZT You Fucked Up Your Post, Try Again messages I encountered just now when trying to nail up my 15th fpp. I wondered why I no longer get to leave the For Dummies fields empty and put everything I want to post, links and all, in the free-text field. Is this Ashcroft's doing? If so, I'm impressed. Sauron's arm has grown long indeed.
posted by jfuller at 6:13 PM on January 11, 2003

jfuller, here's the gist of the error checking I'm doing on the post page:

1 - posts must have a title now, something written in the "post title" box that is only shown as the page title on the thread and for RSS files. Having another variable called "Link Title" is confusing yes, and I need to redo the demo graphic.

If you had something written in the Post Title area, the error should go away

2- the either/or error is so you don't make a post that forgets to fill in both the link URL and link title. If you leave both blank, you'll be ok. If you fill one in, and not the other, there is a problem.


Say I want to post about http://example.com on MetaFilter. In plain text, here's how I'd fill out the post page:

Post Title: The magic of example.com

Link URL: http://example.com
Link Title: Example.com
Description: is a great resource.

The post would read:
Example.com is a great resource

and the title of the page would be "The magic of example.com"

You could choose to leave the link URL and titles blank, and put all the HTML inside the description field, but if you fill in one of the Link fields, you must fill in the other (otherwise you have a URL with no title, or a title without a URL).

Make sense?
posted by mathowie (staff) at 6:29 PM on January 11, 2003

also, try putting "test" in just the Post Title area, and the Description field, and you will see that on the preview screen, there are no errors.
posted by mathowie (staff) at 6:29 PM on January 11, 2003

Thanks, Matthew. Fuller tips hat.
posted by jfuller at 6:41 PM on January 11, 2003

Remember kids, don't drink and link. This message brought to you by ovaltine.
posted by machaus at 8:10 PM on January 11, 2003

As long as there's no post about poop, I guess I'm okay with all of this. Proceed.
posted by jonson at 8:11 PM on January 11, 2003

an electrified confusion generator... (set) for maximum confusion

I want one, jonson. Maybe AS&S (hey! I just realized their acronym is "ASS"! Ahuh-huh, I just said "Ass.") or Loompanics has one? I foresee many fun applications.
posted by Shane at 9:36 PM on January 11, 2003

I miss posts about poop..........
posted by y6y6y6 at 9:37 PM on January 11, 2003

Shane, I know you're kidding, but in all seriousness, thanks for the AS&S link, very cool! Time to go do my part to keep the economy running!
posted by jonson at 10:27 PM on January 11, 2003

Also, y6, you should go over to poofilter, they're up to their neck in posts about poop!
posted by jonson at 10:30 PM on January 11, 2003

Loompanics is fun too, jonson. It's not quite as comprehensively subversive as it used to be (their catalogue used to be phone-book sized). But if a Confusion Generator exists, you can probably find plans to build one at Loompanics.
posted by Shane at 11:06 PM on January 11, 2003