Profile URLs now going to names not numbers?

November 22, 2004 6:06 PM

I keep a bookmark that ends in the spelled-out version of my username so that I can go to it and type out other users' names at the end if I don't know their user number. Tonight, going to it to find some other user's page, it took me to the page with the URL ending in my user number rather than the word "interrobang".

In the past couple of days, I've also "moused" over other people's names to see who they were--mainly in ask metafilter--and gotten the URL ending in the name spelled out rather than the number. Is this because the standard is soon going to be user pages with URLs ending in names, rather than numbers?
posted by interrobang to Bugs at 6:06 PM (12 comments total)

If so, I think this might even be a good idea; there'd be less obvious user-number hauteur unless someone went all the way to the user page to find out the poster's join-date.

Otherwise, I'm just curious about why my old link doesn't work.
posted by interrobang at 6:07 PM on November 22, 2004

I'm curious, can you link to an example comment?

I just tried myself, and it gave me a CF error (unless I missundertood what you meant).
posted by sbutler at 6:14 PM on November 22, 2004

In the past couple of days, I've also "moused" over other people's names to see who they were--mainly in ask metafilter--and gotten the URL ending in the name spelled out rather than the number.

Are you sure you didn't to it 'on preview'? If you do it then, you get the name rather than the number.
posted by The God Complex at 6:16 PM on November 22, 2004

See, I can never remember how the URLs ending in usernames are spelled out; that's why I have my own bookmarked. It's the difference between this (which works):

http://www.metafilter.com/user/14471

and this (which is totally made up, but looks about right):

http://www.metafilter.com/user/The God Complex

I'm not sure I didn't do it on preview, but I've never seen it happen before the last couple of days.
posted by interrobang at 6:19 PM on November 22, 2004

Okay, I just realized that I could look in my bookmarks to find it:

http://www.metafilter.com/username.mefi/interrobang

I cut-and-pasted it into the browser (Mozilla, by the way), and it suddenly switches to the "14200" ending. What gives?
posted by interrobang at 6:22 PM on November 22, 2004

I don't think it's a bug, tho it may be. I'd guess it's some recoding to eliminate redundancy.
posted by dash_slot- at 6:35 PM on November 22, 2004

Have you discovered Mozilla's smart bookmarks? Seems like a better solution than trying to edit a URL all the time. Especially if the URL starts disappearing on you.
posted by Galvatron at 6:42 PM on November 22, 2004

I use a bookmarklet for MeFi user profile searches by username (located here). Just another option if you don't want to make a smart bookmark or don't use Mozilla.
posted by nuala at 9:49 PM on November 22, 2004

on most pages, users names are linked to the user page like this:
http://www.metafilter.com/user/986

the comment preview pages however, use this:
http://www.metafilter.com/username.mefi/quonsar
posted by quonsar at 9:57 PM on November 22, 2004

oh - i see what you mean. it changes now. hm.
posted by quonsar at 10:00 PM on November 22, 2004

OK: I'm http://www.metafilter.com/user/15754

If I try: http://www.metafilter.com/username.mefi/?!

I just get a CF error. Maybe the switch to numbers is for those whose username screws up CF?
posted by ?! at 11:41 AM on November 23, 2004

?!: That's probably just a little bug that needs fixing, a while back usernames with a . in them gave errors at username.mefi too.
posted by fvw at 1:29 PM on November 23, 2004