Can we have an alternative frontpage where all the posts which mention Iraq are filtered out?

March 22, 2003 3:21 AM

Can we have an alternative frontpage where all the posts which mention Iraq are filtered out? I'm getting a bit tired of this war thing and would like to enjoy my MetaFilter Iraq free. Something like www.metafilter.com/noiraq.mefi would be greatly appreciated!
posted by sebas to feature requests at 3:21 AM (48 comments total)

Sure. View source. Search and replace Iraq to "Kittens" save as HTML and load in browser.

You just saved Matt hours of coding and testing.
posted by skallas at 4:08 AM on March 22, 2003

Here you go: MFdistilled
posted by Ljubljana at 4:09 AM on March 22, 2003

I'm sure it's not quite what you're looking for, but y6y6y6 & Co.'s MF Distilled seems to filter out all but the most worthy of war posts. I've found the MeFi frontpage to be less than enjoyable recently, so I think I'll be sticking to the distilled version for a couple of weeks. Or months.

The /noiraq option may sound nice, but it would probably encourage even more Iraq posts ("If you don't like it, you can filter it!").
posted by Galvatron at 4:10 AM on March 22, 2003

CNN censors reporter Kevin Sites' weblog from Kittens.

Manipulating Minds: The Psychological War on Kittens.

Light of reason is an effort to peacefully demonstrate your dissent with the current war on Kittens.

and finally:

Bush and Chirac debate Kittens
posted by skallas at 4:11 AM on March 22, 2003

yeah, the ceaseless posting of stories relating to iraq, which could oh so easily be found anywhere fucking else by simply turning on a tv, opening a newspaper, listening to the radio, surfing the web for 0.3 nanoseconds, talking to another person for more than half a minute, walking down the street, or whatever, is really beginning to grate. really. i mean, what is the motherfucking point??? just ban it.
posted by mokey at 4:42 AM on March 22, 2003

Good idea, but I don't know how much coding it would require on mathowie's part. Maybe a radio button to indicate IRAQ-post which tags the specific post and which could be then filtered out through personal settings?
If this thing would get implemented (which I doubt) I would like to see other tags be implemented, too (such as postings which just link to NYT articles and alike).
posted by zerofoks at 4:47 AM on March 22, 2003

better yet, make an entirely brand new funandgamesfilter.com and go there.
posted by kv at 5:08 AM on March 22, 2003

Thanks for the link to MF Distilled.

I don't know about the other editors, but I try to pick things that I wouldn't find in other media. (though that's more of a guideline than a rule) So war news and op-ed immediately gets kicked to the curb.
posted by y6y6y6 at 5:58 AM on March 22, 2003

I have an idea. See if the front page post mentions Iraq then skip the post. Low tech but it works.
posted by konolia at 6:15 AM on March 22, 2003

If it was that easy. But sometimes there are like 80 new links posted after I come back again. And I simply think it is a hassle to dig through each one of them.
posted by zerofoks at 6:28 AM on March 22, 2003

Yeah, I'm so bored with this war. Let's do something else already.
posted by crunchland at 6:36 AM on March 22, 2003

This comes up all the time regarding some subject or site. Start a collection to pay Matt to code a my.metafilter.com in which you can pick topics you want to see. Doesn't sound like it would be a *huge* undertaking. If each post had a category then you could simply screen out post by category. A "killfile" for certain domains would take care of the news sites and also to block viewing posts of certain users.

Or as someone already mentioned just build funandgamesfilter.com and be done with it and let the community chug along here like it always has.
posted by skallas at 7:07 AM on March 22, 2003

But sometimes there are like 80 new links posted after I come back again. And I simply think it is a hassle to dig through each one of them.

Don't you have to do that anyway? I mean, out of any 20 threads posted during a non-war period, I'm only really interested in maybe half, and involved in one or two. I'm not really sure how the "I'm too busy to sort out all the non-Iraq stuff" excuse flies in a community weblog where all topics are relevant.
posted by PrinceValium at 7:10 AM on March 22, 2003

"If you're going to make a kvetch regarding the Iraq war, please reconsider, as this dead horse has been beaten previously many times."
posted by XQUZYPHYR at 7:15 AM on March 22, 2003

You know, we really need to send Matt some money. All these dead horses must be running up quite a bill by now.
posted by konolia at 8:11 AM on March 22, 2003

They gotta start smellin' sumpin' terr-ble, too!
posted by mischief at 8:49 AM on March 22, 2003

You have to dig through FPP's to figure out which aren't about Iraq? What, are you sounding out the individual words?

You just LOOK at them, man! And then don't click! There are hardly ANY posts which appear to be about, say, kittens, that turn out to be actually about war.
posted by padraigin at 9:27 AM on March 22, 2003

Looking is a hassle. :-)

What can I say? The internet spoiled me.
posted by zerofoks at 10:20 AM on March 22, 2003

Just for sebas (and padraigin ;) - Kittens and war.
posted by iconomy at 10:25 AM on March 22, 2003

haha, iconomy - great link. But then again, you always find quirky, interesting things, you destroyer of white space, you.
posted by madamjujujive at 10:48 AM on March 22, 2003

posted by y2karl at 1:46 PM on March 22, 2003

Thanks, madam - that's high praise, coming from the queen of quirk herself. I can't believe you read that whole post.
Is white space one word or two?
posted by iconomy at 1:55 PM on March 22, 2003

WOOHOO! KittenFilter RULES!!!!
posted by padraigin at 2:40 PM on March 22, 2003

Whiskers of mass destruction?
posted by taz at 4:22 PM on March 22, 2003

strategy of shock and paw?
posted by taz at 4:25 PM on March 22, 2003

Manipulating Minds: The Psychological War on Kittens.

America screws kittens.
posted by Shane at 4:55 PM on March 22, 2003

Cat Poop Carpet Bombing. It happens.
posted by y2karl at 5:13 PM on March 22, 2003

destroyer of white space said queen of quirk. heh.
posted by y2karl at 5:16 PM on March 22, 2003

Kittens are people too.
posted by iconomy at 6:05 PM on March 22, 2003

And people want to leave MeFi and never come back. What dipshits.
posted by padraigin at 7:26 PM on March 22, 2003

no, we want Iraq to leave Mefi
posted by Big_B at 7:39 PM on March 22, 2003

Let's have a round of applause for iconomy's first tagline:

iconomy: destroyer of white space said queen of quirk. heh.

(I'd be happy with just a "heh":

shane: heh.

Just for sebas (and padraigin ;) - Kittens and war.
You realize every time you look at that God kills a kitten..?
posted by Shane at 8:18 PM on March 22, 2003

You just LOOK at them, man! And then don't click! There are hardly ANY posts which appear to be about, say, kittens, that turn out to be actually about war.

Well, it's a total pain in the ass, man, like when I'm surfing channels on TV and I see something I don't like -- I, like, totally have to hit the button on the remote and go to a different channel which, like, takes soooo much damn much energy, almost as much energy as scrolling past an Iraq post at Mefi...
posted by Shane at 8:42 PM on March 22, 2003

Yes, Shane, but at least with your television you don't have to go to a channel you might want to watch for a while and have a bunch of assholes pop up in the middle of the program to say "this thread is about something I don't want to talk about!" then leave.
posted by XQUZYPHYR at 9:12 PM on March 22, 2003

posted by y2karl at 9:15 PM on March 22, 2003

Won't please somebody think of the polar bears (and the penguins)?
posted by zerofoks at 11:09 PM on March 22, 2003

Can we have a single MetaTalk thread that doesn't degenerate into stupid jokes? How 'bout a question asked, a question answered or discussed, and that's it?
posted by anildash at 2:08 AM on March 23, 2003

Can we have a single MetaTalk thread that doesn't degenerate into stupid jokes?

Once the question has been answered, what does it matter if people play around, anil? The useless kvetching about ritual silliness on MetaTalk is far more inscrutable to me than the Meta community finding some neutral territory to monkey around in.
posted by dgaicun at 3:38 AM on March 23, 2003

Absolutely, dgaicun--it's like the British and German troops in World War I, climbing out of their trenches and singing Christmas carols together. It unites us when when we are so divided.
posted by y2karl at 6:54 AM on March 23, 2003

Maybe Matt could cook up an Iraq news ghetto for the front page. Looks like this war is going to be with us - and worth commenting on - for a long time.

I first discovered Mefi on 9/11, and nobody seemed to be saying get the WTC posts off the front page then.
posted by zaelic at 7:02 AM on March 23, 2003

Stare into the evil eyes of Saddam.
posted by raysmj at 11:05 AM on March 23, 2003

Can we have a single MetaTalk thread that doesn't degenerate into stupid jokes?

The stupid-joke-thread-degeneration issue was discussed heatedly in this thread, which then degenerated into stupid jokes as well.
posted by Shane at 11:08 AM on March 23, 2003

hooray for stupid jokes - source of infinite joy to the phenomenological world!
posted by zerofoks at 12:15 PM on March 23, 2003

Looks like this war is going to be with us - and worth commenting on - for a long time.

When things remain civil, I agree--when it gets ugly I'm tempted to use weapons of mass inanity and kitten bomb the blue.
posted by y2karl at 1:36 PM on March 23, 2003

The fact that you actually edited one of the kittens getting shot down in flames is mildly disturbing.
posted by XQUZYPHYR at 1:45 PM on March 23, 2003

That kitten picture is now my wallpaper.
posted by konolia at 2:09 PM on March 23, 2003

It's not mine--it's Sex Kitten's.
posted by y2karl at 4:07 PM on March 23, 2003

posted by y2karl at 4:12 PM on March 23, 2003