How about limiting the amount of text for FPPs January 17, 2003 7:49 AM Subscribe
How about limiting the amount of text for FPPs, and a bit of text instructing those with [More] to use it?
If anyone hass any idea about what should be included I invite you to share them here.
Ve hass many ideaz! Ve vill implement zees ideaz and ze vorld vill SCREAM! AHAHAHAHAHA!
I'm sorry. I've got nothing. I hear you about the post-o-lengthy, if it's any consolation, though I don't know if it's such a biggie that Matt should worry about it. I mostly see it as an ongoing symptom of what I think of as the Shotgun Effect re: links in a post. The more links in a given post, the less likely I am to read any of them.
posted by Skot at 8:30 AM on January 17, 2003
Ve hass many ideaz! Ve vill implement zees ideaz and ze vorld vill SCREAM! AHAHAHAHAHA!
I'm sorry. I've got nothing. I hear you about the post-o-lengthy, if it's any consolation, though I don't know if it's such a biggie that Matt should worry about it. I mostly see it as an ongoing symptom of what I think of as the Shotgun Effect re: links in a post. The more links in a given post, the less likely I am to read any of them.
posted by Skot at 8:30 AM on January 17, 2003
Just my own thoughts here:
It doesn't matter how long a front page post is, as long as the text is important with regards to the link. Other sources / opinions, or further information.
The "[More]", IMO is more apt for background links. Say, for instance, you're making a post about P2P music-sharing; throw the main story link in the FPP with 1 or 2 support links. Then, for the [More], you could add a background on the whole RIAA -vs- P2P. Just an example, I'm not referring to any current FPPs.
Personally, I've yet to see an FPP that is "too long" (obviously, by my own personal standards). The posts about things that don't interest me, I skip, but I still enjoy seeing a huge wealth of links -- even if it is right on the front page.
My own philosophy on the matter: One person's "too much" is another's "not enough".
posted by Dark Messiah at 8:57 AM on January 17, 2003
It doesn't matter how long a front page post is, as long as the text is important with regards to the link. Other sources / opinions, or further information.
The "[More]", IMO is more apt for background links. Say, for instance, you're making a post about P2P music-sharing; throw the main story link in the FPP with 1 or 2 support links. Then, for the [More], you could add a background on the whole RIAA -vs- P2P. Just an example, I'm not referring to any current FPPs.
Personally, I've yet to see an FPP that is "too long" (obviously, by my own personal standards). The posts about things that don't interest me, I skip, but I still enjoy seeing a huge wealth of links -- even if it is right on the front page.
My own philosophy on the matter: One person's "too much" is another's "not enough".
posted by Dark Messiah at 8:57 AM on January 17, 2003
also discussed here. and an interesting thing, if you search metatalk for "(more" and "[more" you discover people have been doing this in metatalk for a loooong time. i wonder why more don't do it when posting to the FP?
posted by quonsar at 9:02 AM on January 17, 2003
posted by quonsar at 9:02 AM on January 17, 2003
Also discussed here, and here is Matt's response at that time.
posted by languagehat at 9:05 AM on January 17, 2003
posted by languagehat at 9:05 AM on January 17, 2003
Here's a solution that I'm willing to be hasn't been proffered yet: How bout Matt writes a script that analyzes each post, and for those over a certain character count, randomly strips all the vowels, leaving only a consonant strewn wasteland that looks, to all passersby, to be the name of a small Welsh village. For example, this post, when passed through such a filter would become:
Hr's sltn tht 'm wllng t b hsn't bn prffrd yt: Hw bt Mtt wrts scrpt tht nlyzs ch pst, nd fr ths vr crtn chrctr cnt, rndmly strps ll th vwls, lvng nly cnsnnt strwn wstlnd tht lks, t ll pssrsby, t b th nm f smll Wlsh vllg.
Can I get an amen?
posted by jonson at 9:45 AM on January 17, 2003
Hr's sltn tht 'm wllng t b hsn't bn prffrd yt: Hw bt Mtt wrts scrpt tht nlyzs ch pst, nd fr ths vr crtn chrctr cnt, rndmly strps ll th vwls, lvng nly cnsnnt strwn wstlnd tht lks, t ll pssrsby, t b th nm f smll Wlsh vllg.
Can I get an amen?
posted by jonson at 9:45 AM on January 17, 2003
jonson, such language! "lvng nly cnsnnt" is a big insult in Welsh.
I'm no big fan of long posts myself, but I think that solutions are just as elusive as they are for the single-link vs mass-link factions on mefi. I'm sure at some point small posts will come into vogue again. I just hope it's soon.
posted by Salmonberry at 10:14 AM on January 17, 2003
I'm no big fan of long posts myself, but I think that solutions are just as elusive as they are for the single-link vs mass-link factions on mefi. I'm sure at some point small posts will come into vogue again. I just hope it's soon.
posted by Salmonberry at 10:14 AM on January 17, 2003
boycott long front page posts!
posted by crunchland at 10:18 AM on January 17, 2003
posted by crunchland at 10:18 AM on January 17, 2003
boycott long front page posts!
I already do, but it's more because I can't be bothered than it is righteous indignation.
posted by frykitty at 10:34 AM on January 17, 2003
I already do, but it's more because I can't be bothered than it is righteous indignation.
posted by frykitty at 10:34 AM on January 17, 2003
Let's just boycott front page posts, that way we won't have anything to complain about and we'll all live happily ever after.
posted by ashbury at 10:36 AM on January 17, 2003
posted by ashbury at 10:36 AM on January 17, 2003
Actually, ook, the really good stuff is on Page 3. NSFW.
posted by jonson at 11:09 AM on January 17, 2003
posted by jonson at 11:09 AM on January 17, 2003
The one big problem with [more inside] is that you can't just search FPPs to determine whether your own post is a dupe--you have to search comments as well. While that's a good idea anyhow, I think, I've found comment searching on this site to be all but impossible--too many timeouts.
If you want to make [more inside] a required practice, then it should be built into the posting system and easily searchable. Comments are not the answer.
Other subtleties: you have to make sure that the word count isn't unfairly skewed by long URLs with punctuation in them or y2karl's only-appears-for-two-seconds-and-then-goes-away-thus-impossible-to-read mouseover-pop-up link description text. (Not that I have a better idea for y2k's laudable urge to annotate.)
posted by tss at 11:35 AM on January 17, 2003
If you want to make [more inside] a required practice, then it should be built into the posting system and easily searchable. Comments are not the answer.
Other subtleties: you have to make sure that the word count isn't unfairly skewed by long URLs with punctuation in them or y2karl's only-appears-for-two-seconds-and-then-goes-away-thus-impossible-to-read mouseover-pop-up link description text. (Not that I have a better idea for y2k's laudable urge to annotate.)
posted by tss at 11:35 AM on January 17, 2003
tss:
If you want to make [more inside] a required practice, then it should be built into the posting system and easily searchable. Comments are not the answer ... I've found comment searching on this site to be all but impossible--too many timeouts.
you really shouldn't be having any timeouts if you used the option of google to search the site, but you may well get them if you use metafilter's built-in search. the method matt used to write the search no longer scales well with the volume of information here.
moreover: where are you searching through comments using metafilter's search procedure? according to the search interface, only threads and user pages are available options. if i remember correctly, metafilter once did allow comment searches.
personally, i would prefer people who post [more inside] threads put the most important information in the front page posting. whatever smaller details need to be explained can be done so in a comment. if you do things that way, you wouldn't have to modify the way that metafilter's post system works and you wouldn't cause any increases in search time via the built-in method.
posted by moz at 12:19 PM on January 17, 2003
If you want to make [more inside] a required practice, then it should be built into the posting system and easily searchable. Comments are not the answer ... I've found comment searching on this site to be all but impossible--too many timeouts.
you really shouldn't be having any timeouts if you used the option of google to search the site, but you may well get them if you use metafilter's built-in search. the method matt used to write the search no longer scales well with the volume of information here.
moreover: where are you searching through comments using metafilter's search procedure? according to the search interface, only threads and user pages are available options. if i remember correctly, metafilter once did allow comment searches.
personally, i would prefer people who post [more inside] threads put the most important information in the front page posting. whatever smaller details need to be explained can be done so in a comment. if you do things that way, you wouldn't have to modify the way that metafilter's post system works and you wouldn't cause any increases in search time via the built-in method.
posted by moz at 12:19 PM on January 17, 2003
moz: Try searching once with the search interface. You will find that on the results page the search options have expanded. This is almost certainly a bug.
Google does work better, yes, but I'm still not certain that you can search the href attributes of links with Google. This is almost essential for finding duplicate links. The MeFi search does scan HTML tag attributes.
I still think that any addenda to FPPs ought to be grouped with the rest of the post data and not with the comments. They're not comments--they're more of the post (hence "more inside").
posted by tss at 1:55 PM on January 17, 2003
Google does work better, yes, but I'm still not certain that you can search the href attributes of links with Google. This is almost essential for finding duplicate links. The MeFi search does scan HTML tag attributes.
I still think that any addenda to FPPs ought to be grouped with the rest of the post data and not with the comments. They're not comments--they're more of the post (hence "more inside").
posted by tss at 1:55 PM on January 17, 2003
tss:
moz: Try searching once with the search interface. You will find that on the results page the search options have expanded. This is almost certainly a bug.
this was pointed out to me in email, actually, just a while ago. no doubt it is a bug.
Google does work better, yes, but I'm still not certain that you can search the href attributes of links with Google. This is almost essential for finding duplicate links. The MeFi search does scan HTML tag attributes.
you're right, or rather i also believe, that google does not search href attributes. (it didn't with the search i just performed.) however, i don't agree that it is "almost essential" to search them to find duplicate links. threads are removed not only because the links are multiply posted, but as well if they duplicate the story: for example, a news item posted from yahoo in one thread and recently from cnn in another. a search of href attributes would not yield a match, yet this scenario would qualify as a double posting. i think your best bet remains searching with keywords.
posted by moz at 2:12 PM on January 17, 2003
moz: Try searching once with the search interface. You will find that on the results page the search options have expanded. This is almost certainly a bug.
this was pointed out to me in email, actually, just a while ago. no doubt it is a bug.
Google does work better, yes, but I'm still not certain that you can search the href attributes of links with Google. This is almost essential for finding duplicate links. The MeFi search does scan HTML tag attributes.
you're right, or rather i also believe, that google does not search href attributes. (it didn't with the search i just performed.) however, i don't agree that it is "almost essential" to search them to find duplicate links. threads are removed not only because the links are multiply posted, but as well if they duplicate the story: for example, a news item posted from yahoo in one thread and recently from cnn in another. a search of href attributes would not yield a match, yet this scenario would qualify as a double posting. i think your best bet remains searching with keywords.
posted by moz at 2:12 PM on January 17, 2003
no doubt it is a bug.
If I remember correctly (too lazy to search), Our Fearless Leader left it in for those who insist on searching everything back to day one. I've yet to have it return anything but a server timeout.
posted by yerfatma at 3:17 PM on January 17, 2003
If I remember correctly (too lazy to search), Our Fearless Leader left it in for those who insist on searching everything back to day one. I've yet to have it return anything but a server timeout.
posted by yerfatma at 3:17 PM on January 17, 2003
I answered this same question recently, so let me see if I can restate it from memory.
It's on my "features to-do list" to add some code into the posting page that notices when a post is excessively long. It won't provide tools or require anything. It will merely mention that it appears the user is making a lengthy post, and that they should consider either editing it down, or moving some of the content into a [more inside] first comment.
As for the search, I'm dropping the extra options as soon as I get to my office, as searching comments is ridiculously inefficient on the database and slows down the box for everyone else. This shouldn't be much of a problem once the change is made as google is still availalbe and a well-crafted post hinges on a good link, which should appear in the original post, not the more inside comment.
posted by mathowie (staff) at 7:22 PM on January 17, 2003
It's on my "features to-do list" to add some code into the posting page that notices when a post is excessively long. It won't provide tools or require anything. It will merely mention that it appears the user is making a lengthy post, and that they should consider either editing it down, or moving some of the content into a [more inside] first comment.
As for the search, I'm dropping the extra options as soon as I get to my office, as searching comments is ridiculously inefficient on the database and slows down the box for everyone else. This shouldn't be much of a problem once the change is made as google is still availalbe and a well-crafted post hinges on a good link, which should appear in the original post, not the more inside comment.
posted by mathowie (staff) at 7:22 PM on January 17, 2003
Poor Matt, he can't leave us alone for a minute without someone going out of spec. Hope you had a nice vacation, #1.
posted by Lynsey at 10:33 PM on January 17, 2003
posted by Lynsey at 10:33 PM on January 17, 2003
« Older Do we really need more newsfilter posts? | 50% of comments on MetaFilter are by people who... Newer »
You are not logged in, either login or create an account to post comments
posted by xammerboy at 7:52 AM on January 17, 2003