January 2003 Archives (all archives)

January 30

The RSS Feed appears to have been fried by a rogue ampersand

The RSS Feed appears to have been fried by a rogue ampersand. Surround the title text with CDATA tag, perhaps? XML gurus?
posted by vraxoin to Bugs at 2:36 PM PST - 11 comments

Print-friendly links when possible

blah blah woof woof--this is my nit to pick:

What is so hard about the concept of user friendly easier to read links? Printer friendly, where available, should be the default.
I assumed this was a given but perhaps if it were added to the explicit posting canon? It's a no brainer, folks.
posted by y2karl to Etiquette/Policy at 12:53 PM PST - 32 comments

Metafilter referred to in the New York Times (again)

For those of you who keep track of this sort of thing: another Mefi reference in today's NYT - page 2 (registration required)
posted by lilboo to MetaFilter-Related at 12:48 PM PST - 33 comments

January 29

It goes on and on deeper into paranoia

Can anyone explain this? It seems to go on and on, no matter how far you follow the links.
posted by thirteen to MetaFilter-Related at 11:50 AM PST - 44 comments

Got the hate-on for "I for one welcome our...."

mathowie : I delete a handful of 'I for one, welcome our ___ overlords' comments every day. I used to do the same for vibrating comments. I hate pancake references too. They're all just forms of heckling, attempting to derail any discussion and take attention away, just like an in-the-flesh heckler at a speech. I don't buy the 'but other kids were doing it, mom!' because everyone doing it is being a bad citizen by contributing noise to the site."
posted by stavrosthewonderchicken to Etiquette/Policy at 4:27 AM PST - 94 comments

January 28

Cryptic error with some browsers

Can't login to MeFi with Phoenix or Mozilla browsers: "The value "" cannot be converted to a number"
posted by turbodog to Bugs at 12:10 PM PST - 13 comments

January 27

A lot of doubleposts lately (Jan. 2003)?

There seem to be a lot of double posts lately and more interestingly many aren't getting deleted. Has the policy changed, or is it just arbitrary?
posted by jonson to Etiquette/Policy at 11:47 PM PST - 17 comments

Threads and header display screwy

Minor bug? For some reason, threads between 22521 through 22549 are showing up in both Mozilla and IE (Win) as black text on a white background with a seriously screwy top bar. I haven't checked all threads in between, but threads before 22520 and after 22550 seem fine.
posted by mediareport to Bugs at 6:06 PM PST - 7 comments

I can no longer Post to Metafilter in IE5.1 or Mozilla (Mac 9.2)

I can no longer Post to Metafilter in IE5.1 or Mozilla (Mac 9.2). But I can here. Why?
posted by ParisParamus to Bugs at 5:16 PM PST - 5 comments

Pointless Bickering.

Pointless Bickering.
posted by rich to Etiquette/Policy at 12:20 PM PST - 60 comments

January 26

The 'local time' feature doesn't seem to be sticky

The 'local time' feature introduced a while back doesn't seem to be sticky. [more]...
posted by stavrosthewonderchicken to Bugs at 9:42 PM PST - 19 comments

January 25

Advertising posts

Let's recommit ourselves to keeping advertising
separate from content.
posted by cadastral to Etiquette/Policy at 3:55 PM PST - 66 comments

Does Metafilter have a status page?

In the category of "give-Matt-more-work", does metafilter have a status page for when it goes down? If it doesn't, I'm thinking that it would be a nice feature for those of us (most of us, I'm guessing) who are chomping at the bit to find out what might be ailing metafilter and when it will come back online. Of course, the status page would have to live on a different server so that it doesn't go down at the same time.
posted by ashbury to Uptime at 12:08 PM PST - 15 comments

The recent hardware upgrade left the server vulnerable to worms

Alas, there was a critical fact overlooked on the recent hardware upgrade, one which left the server vulnerable to the [sapphire|slammer|SQ hell] worm. All's better now.
posted by delfuego to Uptime at 10:17 AM PST - 17 comments

January 24

Time magazine retracted the story this thread was based on

Since there was a heated debate over this thread. It is worth noting that Time magazine has retracted the story the thread is based on.
posted by Steve_at_Linnwood to MetaFilter-Related at 8:22 AM PST - 16 comments

January 23

What would it take to cure it?

A new server in June, a new version of Cold Fusion in July, a new hard drive in January and it's still an ailing mefi server. What would it take to cure it?
posted by timeistight to MetaFilter-Related at 1:26 PM PST - 105 comments

Not preaching to the choir

These guys are playing to a tough audience...


posted by PenDevil to MetaFilter-Related at 6:36 AM PST - 44 comments

January 22

Bloggies 2003 nominations

Time to stuff the Ballot for the 2003 bloggies and get Matt some tickets to SXSW. At the very least, let's get him a Lifetime Achievement Award over Kottke and Anil. On a related note, I've been wondering what your "Best of 2003" for Metafilter would be? Your favorite/most memorable thread, and who would be your pick for the coveted Poster of the Year kudos? Worst meme and injoke this year? Dumbest metatalk thread? (other than this one)
posted by Stan Chin to MetaFilter-Related at 4:06 PM PST - 73 comments

Self link thrown in to spice up a thread.

Self link thrown in to spice up a thread.
posted by riffola to Etiquette/Policy at 1:15 PM PST - 41 comments

Is that thread helpful or not?

Someone claiming to be a close friend of the guy that died on IRC asked me to remove the thread about it, so I obliged before reading what was said. After reading it all however, it seems like it's full of a lot of useful information. So what to do? Bring it back or keep it away?

(also keep in mind that although I don't think it would happen in this case, but I have been threatened with a lawsuit for not removing requested material before)
posted by mathowie to Etiquette/Policy at 8:58 AM PST - 75 comments

January 21

Author derails own thread

What do we do when the post's author is derailing his/her own thread? [more inside]
posted by qbert72 to Etiquette/Policy at 8:37 PM PST - 15 comments

New window not wanted

Clicking on "Metafilter" on my userpage ("X comments to Metafilter") opens the site in a new window.
posted by rushmc to Bugs at 2:03 PM PST - 4 comments

Moratorium: SUVs, Iraq war, I/P, DC Sniper

Stop the madness!! Enough SUV threads, enough Iraqi war threads, enought I/P threads, enough threads about the D.C. sniper!!!

Seriously, how bout a sidebar moratorium? Or some call out on the posting page?
posted by jonson to Etiquette/Policy at 11:41 AM PST - 64 comments

"In Soviet Russia..." jokes on MeFi.

mmm, new soviet-style pancakes.
posted by luser to Etiquette/Policy at 7:31 AM PST - 16 comments

I got a big CF error

While trying to load the "stupid baby names" page: http://www.metafilter.com/mefi/22236#401840, I got a big CF error [more inside]
posted by Irontom to Bugs at 4:55 AM PST - 6 comments

January 20

Calling Out ParisParamus

Is there any reason to tolerate inflammatory hate-screed like this?

Once again: PATHETIC, delusional, A-HOLE PACIFISTS.
posted by rushmc to Etiquette/Policy at 11:47 PM PST - 144 comments

Moderating your post moderation

Post moderation. I can empathize with feelings of attachment to posts which you submit. When you post as often as troutfishing has in his own post (1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11), however, I think you are overdoing things.
posted by moz to Etiquette/Policy at 3:02 PM PST - 63 comments

January 19

Noise comments to raise contribution index

Almost as worthwile as "first post."
posted by NortonDC to Etiquette/Policy at 7:45 PM PST - 70 comments

What are some great profile pages?

vacapinta's extraordinary user page sadly no longer seems to be updated - any other user page treats I'm missing out on?
posted by gravelshoes to MetaFilter-Related at 1:43 PM PST - 31 comments

Plaintext MeFi?

Is the plain-text version of Metafilter available through a URL hack or a GET request? i.e. can I get the plain-text version without changing my profile? That would be useful for Palm and other small-device versions, esp. for comment pages...
posted by costas to Feature Requests at 8:34 AM PST - 9 comments

January 18

Too much war posting

Stop the presses! So you're saying that some people support a war on Iraq, and other people don't support a war on Iraq? Crazy! I'll bet that's the first time this has ever been discussed on MetaFilter!
posted by The Michael The to Etiquette/Policy at 8:06 PM PST - 27 comments

a really, really, good day for Metafilter

Friday, January 17, 2003 was a really, really, good day for Metafilter.
posted by PrinceValium to MetaFilter-Related at 9:32 AM PST - 11 comments

I'm confused.

I'm confused. A humourous story with environmentalist overtones I had posted to the front page of MeFi vanished within about 20 minutes. Does this sort of thing happen often? And if so, why? this was the story: http://www.cnn.com/2002/US/West/12/19/monkey.pants.reut/index.html
posted by mb01 to Etiquette/Policy at 9:21 AM PST - 14 comments

Auto-focus cursor?

I am a true newbie, but I do have a request. I was inspired by this and in particular, his mention of auto-focusing cursors. Can we do that with MetaFilter? Most obviously on the login screen, but I'm sure it has uses in posting.
posted by ajpresto to Feature Requests at 9:17 AM PST - 15 comments

January 17

50% of comments on MetaFilter are by people who first joined in 2002

50% of comments on MetaFilter are by people who first joined in 2002. In my Mefi wanderings, I got the feeling that there were not many low-digit users posting on MetaFilter anymore. Everyone seemed to be a 14xxx! I decided to seek the truth..
posted by wackybrit to MetaFilter-Related at 6:43 PM PST - 77 comments

How about limiting the amount of text for FPPs

How about limiting the amount of text for FPPs, and a bit of text instructing those with [More] to use it?
posted by xammerboy to Feature Requests at 7:49 AM PST - 23 comments

January 15

Do we really need more newsfilter posts?

newsfilter. in the last five minutes i've seen the same info via politech and slashdot. why does it need to be duplicated on mefi too? this is a place for interesting links, not breaking news. faq. wiki.

please, people, if you're interested in this kind of thing, read and post to appropriate sources. posting everything everywhere just makes a big muddy mess where the only distinction between different sites is the member list and moderation system.
posted by andrew cooke to Etiquette/Policy at 8:25 AM PST - 64 comments

DAYS without metafilter; you guys?

This is the first time since the New Year that metafilter.com has actually resolved for me. At first I thought it was something to do with where I'm connecting, but neither the site that hosts my email (energis2) or demon or my ISP could resolve it either. When I finally get here I find tonnes of postings - so what happened? Did anyone else experience it?
posted by ralawrence to Bugs at 4:54 AM PST - 24 comments

How does Metafilter's logon work across the sites?

When I log into the site, I am not shown as logged in on the front page (therefore unable to post), even though I am shown as logged in here at Metatalk. Is this systemwide or does my computer just hate me?
posted by konolia to Bugs at 3:39 AM PST - 9 comments

January 14

Seattle Meetups

So SeaFi meetings were dime a dozen until I had worked myself up to go. What happened? I'm thinking maybe riding back and forth on the monorail reenacting scenes from "It Happened at the World's Fair". Or did the last meet result in something too terrible to mention?
posted by skyscraper to MetaFilter Gatherings at 9:58 PM PST - 15 comments

MeFi isn't for questions.

This thread asks for links. I thought MetaFilter was about providing good links, not asking for recommendations of good links.
posted by sillygwailo to Etiquette/Policy at 7:31 PM PST - 12 comments

January 13

Danish furniture My Stars!

This thread is racist trash and makes us all look bad. Danish furniture My Stars!


No, hang on; This thread is racist trash and makes us all look bad.
posted by Pretty_Generic to MetaFilter-Related at 7:51 PM PST - 32 comments

San Antonio meetup?

OK, so the thread about the MeFiNY gathering has me feeling envious and alienated (in a good way?). I can see from a search of users that there are plenty of people logging in out of Austin, but is anyone besides me from good ol' San Antonio? Could a MeFiSA be possible, even if all it aspires to is coffee at Jim's?
posted by botono9 to MetaFilter Gatherings at 3:39 PM PST - 28 comments

January 12

Mathowie backs up MeFi

Success! (I think)

Thanks to some in-person help, I remotely did a backup of the old, corrupted hard drive's web folders and deployed everything onto the new drive. Now that everything's back up, it all seems to be working again (disturbingly smoothly if I must say). If you find any problems, let me know here.
posted by mathowie to Uptime at 3:04 PM PST - 50 comments

January 11

New posting page confusion

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 PST - 12 comments

Time Zone Bug

I'm not seeing my time zone on the home page, or on comment pages — I'm seeing PST.
posted by nicwolff to Bugs at 11:51 AM PST - 8 comments

January 10

MeFiNYC Winter 2003

MeFiNYC Winter 2003 was great fun, unless you happened to be the monkey. It had sex, drugs, death threats, and '80s pop.
posted by riffola to MetaFilter Gatherings at 11:03 PM PST - 72 comments

is MeFi dead?

Sorry if this is a stupid question, but is MeFi dead? I haven't been getting through all day until just now, and even now I'm only seeing "Index Of" and two HRs.
posted by oissubke to Bugs at 1:44 PM PST - 38 comments

Small-time blog calls MeFi something bad

Or perhaps as someone named "stupidcomputernickname" posted on the MetaFilter Web site, a sort of electronic coffee klatch, we should only allow people whose children are in the military to be elected to Congress. That way, we get shared sacrifice without a draft.

Coffee klatch? We ain't no stinking coffee klatch...
*sudden sound of gunfire*
posted by y2karl to MetaFilter-Related at 12:44 AM PST - 12 comments

January 9

Why'd you delete my post?

"This post was deleted for the following reason: I am r00t. ph34r m3 luz3r. you're p0st suxx0rs. you R 0wnzered." I know I'm new to metafilter, but since when is there an 31337 club you have to be in to post to teh front page? I thought that was a mondo excellent link and I think you do the metafiller community a gr8 disservice by d3l33ting it.
posted by KettleBlack to Etiquette/Policy at 9:51 PM PST - 38 comments

I've received JRun errors, Server Errors, and just plain "site not available" messages

Anything unusual (besides the window config mentioned below) going on with the site availability tonight? I've received JRun errors, Server Errors, and just plain "site not available" messages... I'm sure it's not on my end, but in case it matters, Mozilla 1.2, Windows XP.
posted by jonson to Bugs at 7:31 PM PST - 1 comment

I changed the way new/same window targetting is done

I changed the way new/same window targetting is done, so if you have your preferences set to "open links in a new window" and links internal to metafilter are spawning new windows, let me know and I'll fix them. Only links within posts, comments and on the front page should lead to new windows, everything else should stay the same.
posted by mathowie to Bugs at 5:24 PM PST - 11 comments

OK, I'm going to call troll on this.

OK, I'm going to call troll on this. It's a continuation from another thread, so it's unnecessary. It's trollish because the poster is using the post not to point out something interesting or debate-worthy on the Web, but to further an agenda.
posted by hama7 to Bugs at 6:11 AM PST - 70 comments

January 8

Textbox more constricting than tighty-whiteys

Could we make the Post a Link page's description field be a bit bigger? On my most recent FPP post, I found that I was using a lot of markup (really the first time I had done markup this extensive for a FPP) and having trouble making code changes/editing content because the textbox just seems a bit constricting. Also, this could be helpful for Metatalk as well.
posted by Hammerikaner to Feature Requests at 9:31 PM PST - 12 comments

Put Daisy Oolong in the Sidebar

The Daisy Oolong Thread should go on the sidebar. It's important, touching, and humanizes Metafilter.
posted by ParisParamus to Feature Requests at 7:36 PM PST - 31 comments

Symbol Etiquette

Kettleblack's got an annoying habit of using "o<" in almost all of his posts, but I can get over that. However, his /. stylings in his recent post and comment are really grating.
posted by Irontom to Etiquette/Policy at 10:39 AM PST - 66 comments

January 6

Newsfilter in the worst way

This thread is a NewsFilter post in the worst way.

It is not new (Newsflash: Bush to Lower Taxes, Water Wet) or interesting. And it certainly doesn't lend itself to much discussion. I, for one, want to be subjected to Randian diatribes only slightly more than I want people posting their personal tax ephemera on metafilter. The fact that the article is from a mainstream news source only adds insult to injury.
posted by zpousman to Etiquette/Policy at 12:20 PM PST - 34 comments

January 5

How to get help finding a link?

I hope this isn't a stupid question, and I have checked the FAQ, but.... is there any polite way to ask for help locating a link that was posted in the comments of a thread? I remember reading the link, but not the original thread it was in, and would like to return to the link to print it and use in class. Is there some way to ask the general readership to help me find the thread? I have Googled, I have searched MetaFilter....no avail. Sorry if this is silly.
posted by oflinkey to MetaFilter-Related at 1:18 PM PST - 35 comments

Time Frame for Search Option

Would it be possible when performing a MeFi search to have a time option for more than a month, but less than a year? Maybe 6 months? Wouldn't this decrease "timing out"? Thanks!
posted by RunsWithBandageScissors to Feature Requests at 8:23 AM PST - 4 comments

Metafilter wiki debut

MetaFilter wiki. "The main purpose of this wiki is to produce and maintain a general guide for MetaFilter" Yes, I know frykitty has created a FAQ, but this Wiki is pretty handy too.
posted by riffola to MetaFilter-Related at 7:42 AM PST - 19 comments

January 4

Page Views

Maybe this is just wishful thinking on my part, but I think it would be neat to have a feature that displays the number of times a page was viewed, so that those threads that are truly great yet don't elicit many responses are acknowledged. Just a thought.
posted by The Michael The to Feature Requests at 8:04 PM PST - 5 comments

Spam from homeless guy who wants to be on MeFi

Anyone else getting spammed by some homeless guy to post his site as a mefi link? "I'd do it myself, but matt isn't taking new members right now."

If they guy had bothered to cut-and-paste more detail, I might have considered it ... maybe.

Anyone else?
posted by KiloHeavy to Etiquette/Policy at 3:11 PM PST - 17 comments

Avoiding Duplicate Posts

Trying to avoid repeat posts is pretty hard because of timeouts from the search system. (In fact, I wanted to see if this is a duplicate Metatalk topic, but my searches stalled.) I want to avoid dupes, really I do! My memory isn't encyclopedic, though (and I have a life, *cough* ;-). How do the old hands here really avoid repeat posts? Shouldn't it be in a FAQ?

(Interestingly, after I started doing more searches, MetaFilter went into general "Server Error" mode for a while. Hmm...)
posted by tss to Etiquette/Policy at 1:25 PM PST - 10 comments

January 3

Demographics of planet MeFi

Not so much a feature as a one-time feature. The thread on tort reform (quite entertaining and refreshingly civil, given the number of comments it spawned) left me surprised that so many MeFites are attorneys. Not that there's anything wrong with that...
But I often wonder about the demographics of planet MeFi.
Isn't there a simple way we could have a town census (a/s/l occupation etc. It would be mildly fascinating to have such info in our profiles as well, but maybe thats raising the veil too high.
posted by BentPenguin to Feature Requests at 12:00 PM PST - 43 comments

Link to dead-tree versions worthless

Worthless links. If we have to hunt down print copies of something, why are you linking to web-based statements that don't actually support your post?
posted by Su to Etiquette/Policy at 8:57 AM PST - 4 comments

Mozilla Issues

is anyone else having problems posting in mozilla? i post, click preview and nothing is there.
posted by quarsan to Bugs at 12:56 AM PST - 17 comments

January 2

Metafilter Remixed seems to be down.

Metafilter Remixed seems to be down now. What did we learn from this experiment?http://webmutant.com/mefi/remixed.cgi
posted by JohnR to MetaFilter-Related at 4:54 PM PST - 15 comments

Welcome me to Chicago meetup

so i'm making the great leap from albuquerque to chicago in a month, and i was wondering if any of y'all wanted to party like it was going out of style (more inside, etc)
posted by sugarfish to MetaFilter Gatherings at 2:51 PM PST - 8 comments

useful to add entry-dates on user comment pages?

Just an idea: would it be slightly more useful to add entry-dates on user comment pages?
posted by DenOfSizer to Feature Requests at 1:51 PM PST - 2 comments

January 1

One of my links is messed up.

The last link in this thread was fine on preview but not after I posted.
posted by mediareport to Bugs at 12:38 PM PST - 2 comments

Nothing happened; News at 11

Reporting the absence of news? Isn't that what this thread's doing?

Plus, the searches linked in the FPP are unlikely to bear any fruit, given that they're hyper-specific (within quotation marks) and not grammatically correct unless you speak headline-ese.
posted by Vidiot to Etiquette/Policy at 11:34 AM PST - 11 comments