Is there any easy way to check for deleted threads?

August 5, 2004 12:00 PM

I really enjoy watching bright (and not so bright) people make stupid, dumb mistakes. Is there any easy way to check for deleted threads?
posted by graventy to MetaFilter-related at 12:00 PM (30 comments total)

I mean, I know about lofi, but I can't spend 10-15 minutes a day comparing MeFi frontpage to lofi. The only ones I end up seeing are the ones that get bitched about. I barely have time to read the biased flamefests that don't get deleted!
posted by graventy at 12:02 PM on August 5, 2004

It's like what they say about porn: if you want some, go make your own!
posted by trondant at 12:15 PM on August 5, 2004

try the google cache.
posted by Kwantsar at 12:16 PM on August 5, 2004

Pay attention to the addresses shown in your status bar when you hover over a comments link. The numbers should increment by one as you go up the page; when they skip (like 34769 -> 34781) the missing number has been deleted. Enter the skipped comments link (IE: http://www.metafilter.com/mefi/34780) in your address bar and Robert's your Mother's brother.

PS: 34780 has nothing good so don't even bother with it.
posted by Mitheral at 12:46 PM on August 5, 2004

I'm also a fan of deleted threads. It's fun and educational, too! Because Matt's gnomic comments tell us all what's not good for MeFi.

I've been waiting for some person smarter than me (huge field, huge) to create a site that consists solely of deleted MeFi threads, identifying and scraping them based on the out-of-sequence thread IDs. Is this even possible?
posted by luser at 12:58 PM on August 5, 2004

Because most people don't see these, and they really are enjoyable, here's a sampling of Matt's gnomic comments:

- bleah.
- seems like a lame op-ed. too silly.
- whatever, I don't care, I do what I want!
- keee-rist. tone it down a little, huh?
- a fairly ugly inference, don't you think?
- I'm sorry too [for a post entitled "I'm sorry"].
- this isn't a mailing list.
- Miguel totally copied an old post.
- you are sooooo banned.
- it's a fucking spam site.
- Iraq, you raq, we all raq!
- It's olds, not news. OldsFilter!
- read the comments for a dozen reasons why this is a lame post.
- I dunno if this quite makes the "interesting" cut posted
- yeah, uh, pretty dumb link, and mocking other members isn't the best idea.
- bad software! bad! You go in the corner and think about what you programmed!
- using mefi to get tech help for your domain?
- I don't see any video on the site, just a crappy message board (oh the irony!).
- not worthy!
- junk it, yo!
- dude, cardinal sin of mefi: don't link to your own shit.
- not another pissing match, sheesh.
- the white media is shutting you DOWN!
- dead posts tell no tales, but they do link to earlier tales.
- pointless and vindictive.
- pointless bickering

[and my favourite]

- I don't know why I even try anymore.
posted by orange swan at 1:13 PM on August 5, 2004 [1 favorite]

Thanks, orange swan! These are great. I didn't realize that Matt was so funny.

Who was sooooo banned? I love bannings.
posted by iconomy at 1:43 PM on August 5, 2004

orange swan, I think you just did, indeed, succeed in knitting the perfect cozy for matt's rock hard pedestal; good work!
posted by taz at 1:57 PM on August 5, 2004

Googling for matt's commentary (in quotation marks) will take you to the hilarious threads the comments come from.
posted by Krrrlson at 2:04 PM on August 5, 2004

add the phrase "you are sooooo banned" to the search
and you can see. I was going to link all of the ones above
but decided against it.
posted by milovoo at 2:05 PM on August 5, 2004

(If the phrases are generic add "following reason: " to the beginning :)
posted by Krrrlson at 2:05 PM on August 5, 2004

I really enjoy watching bright (and not so bright) people make stupid, dumb mistakes.

Watch Saturday Night Live some time.
posted by rocketman at 2:18 PM on August 5, 2004

I'm not sure if this is how orange swan got his list, but googling '"This post was deleted for the following reason" site:metafilter.com' brought up a bunch, though some were references from undeleted posts.
posted by bitpart at 2:59 PM on August 5, 2004

Holy hot damn, I'm a moron. Apologies, Kwantsar.
posted by bitpart at 3:01 PM on August 5, 2004

To reiterate:

I really enjoy watching bright (and not so bright) people make stupid, dumb mistakes.

Enjoy away!
posted by bitpart at 3:03 PM on August 5, 2004

Pay attention to the addresses shown in your status bar when you hover over a comments link. The numbers should increment by one as you go up the page; when they skip (like 34769 -> 34781) the missing number has been deleted.

I just hacked together a bookmarklet for detecting these missing numbers automatically. Seems to work ok; try it out on the front page.
posted by milov at 3:37 PM on August 5, 2004

too cool, milow. thanks!
posted by rhapsodie at 3:47 PM on August 5, 2004

miloV.
maybe i should read my preview, eh?
posted by rhapsodie at 3:47 PM on August 5, 2004

Hey, what's up with this one?
posted by Krrrlson at 4:31 PM on August 5, 2004

If you're interested in seeing the crud alongside the good, why don't you just read only lofi? It's *all* there, right?
posted by scarabic at 4:34 PM on August 5, 2004

This one has my favorite reason for deletion. And then shortly afterwards, when Matt had to give that user a timeout, this comment was the perfect follow up.
posted by jonson at 4:59 PM on August 5, 2004

If you're interested in seeing the crud alongside the good, why don't you just read only lofi? It's *all* there, right?

But, scarabic, I want to see the crud all by itself. It's a schaedenfreude thing.
posted by timeistight at 5:01 PM on August 5, 2004

Ah then, yes. I guess you want crud.metafilter.com. I'm surprised no one's put together a crawler for that. If I were Matt, I would probably avoid such a thing, as it will only give deleted threads new life, and also make it really easy to dig up other user's embarassing mistakes. Better for the community, overall, to bury them I think. Though I can relate to the schadenfreude thing. And deleted threads can be educational, too, as far as showing people what not to do.
posted by scarabic at 5:22 PM on August 5, 2004

Someone should set up a crawler for it and allow comments on the threads.
posted by reklaw at 7:50 PM on August 5, 2004

Matt explained his take on this a while back, and I agree with him. Human nature being what it is, making a crud.metafilter.com type of thing would incline some people to wanting to game the system and be King of The Shitpile.
posted by stavrosthewonderchicken at 7:52 PM on August 5, 2004

oh, pshaw.
posted by quonsar at 8:34 PM on August 5, 2004

"bad software! bad! You go in the corner and think about what you programmed!" presents a very interesting concept, re: "theft" of referrals.
posted by five fresh fish at 9:16 PM on August 5, 2004

can you say 'd00fus'?

i knew you could!
posted by quonsar at 10:21 PM on August 5, 2004

I'm not sure I should say more than what I have, out of fear that it's what Matt deleted the thread for.

If not, the idea is brilliant:

Write a handy application that people value. Value enough that, like Folding@Home, they're willing to trade off a tiny bit of their computer and internet resources to let you do something.

And what that something does is make it appear that this user is visiting your website and clicking on advertisements. Just a couple times. Then it gets referred to another site to repeat the process.

They're generating click-thru traffic for you. The advertisers pay you. And there's no way for them to know that you're cheating them.

Of course, you also charge others' to be on your list; you can generate traffic for them, too, and take a slice.

I hope it doesn't break the Internet. Are clickthrus important any more?
posted by five fresh fish at 10:28 PM on August 5, 2004

fff: Sorry.

These have actually existed quite a while. I had a kid working under me once who earned, he claimed, as much as $200/mo for combining paid-to-surf programs with browser-based or -emulating utilities designed to exploit the hell out of them. It helped that he was able to do this on the company's dime (about 1.5% of their bandwidth, I calculated ... but then, about 37% was employee use of Napster).

It was pretty entertaining to watch his PC do random cursor movements and click its way around the intarweb.
posted by dhartung at 11:51 PM on August 5, 2004