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November 2002 Archives (all archives)
November 30
November 27
Sunday, Dec 1st is Worlds AIDS Day, and part of the observance that relates to the realm of weblogs is the
Link and Think Project.
Like
last year, and
the year before, I'll be redesigning MetaFilter to use a stark black and white template, and asking everyone to focus every post that day to something related to AIDS and HIV.
I'm posting this now to get everyone thinking about it early. If there is some aspect of the subject that interests you, whether that's how not to get the virus, that it gets too much funding, that pop stars do a bad job promoting awareness, or even that you don't think it exists, I encourage you to do some research to unearth some links to help you craft a post on the matter.
posted by mathowie to MetaFilter-Related at 11:36 AM PST - 49 comments
Am I the only one that doesn't like FPPs that begin the political arguement in the post itself. See a
post today for what I mean. Nothing against
The Jesse Helms, but the links don't point to anything new. It appears to me to be a political broadside instead of interesting information. IMHO, interesting information is what a 'metafilter' is supposed to provide.
I thought the idea of MeFi was to let discussion occur in the comments, not on the front page.
Or am I way off base and should I head back to Slashdot & the WWDN forums?
posted by Argyle to Etiquette/Policy at 10:49 AM PST - 32 comments
November 26
I'm wearing my MeFi
t-shirt today, which declares "MF" in big letters on the front. Unfortunately I got my order in before the frontal design changed to read "MeFi" instead of "MF". Did anyone else buy one of these, and if so, did you wear it to the office? What did your coworkers say? Did they call you a MoFo?
posted by TreeHugger to Bugs at 9:19 AM PST - 35 comments
November 25
I, uh, made a fpp about 3 hours ago which eventually got deleted. Granted the cracks.am site probably shouldn't have been linked but could someone tell me what I did wrong? No need to flame, you can email me too. Thanks.
posted by PWA_BadBoy to Etiquette/Policy at 11:49 PM PST - 18 comments
November 24
Infinitesimal, weird and probably just me: over on MetaFilter, when I click "Back" from a thread it takes me to this weekend's
We're still working on the upgrade notice. [IE 6, W2KPro]
posted by MiguelCardoso to Bugs at 7:50 PM PST - 12 comments
Yesterday, I saw a bumper sticker on a pickup truck that said, "Flash me, it's Friday!" Is this the origin of Flash Friday on MetaFilter?
posted by faustessa to MetaFilter-Related at 3:11 PM PST - 4 comments
Server's back up. Not all the updates are done, but the server should be exactly the same as before.
posted by anildash to Uptime at 2:49 PM PST - 29 comments
November 23
Sorry about the downtime. I was dicking around with the server a little. Things should be back to normal now. More downtime tomorrow, perhaps as I finish the upgrades.
posted by anildash to Uptime at 7:01 PM PST - 12 comments
I posted a thread about retail price plans for major retailers being publsished on websites ahead of time. The retailers were ticked. The story questioned if this was a freedom of speech issue or did the retailers have a right to demand the information be removed.
The thread was removed. Was it the subject or the link to an audio news story?
posted by hockeyman to Etiquette/Policy at 8:40 AM PST - 6 comments
When I wanted to do a search to find out if someone had linked to a given site in a FPP yet, I decided to try something different. I went to
old google and put in
this URL, which was the link in the most popular
FPPof the day exactly two weeks ago, as a
"who link's to you?" search.
Shouldn't google have indexed the
thread, then, since
it links back to the original article? Strange, that it doesn't do this for a link and lenghty thread on a topic that will have serious implications for everyone on the internet, specifically Americans? Has google dropped the ball? Is this all just a bunch of
Tom-Foolery?
posted by Hammerikaner to MetaFilter-Related at 12:20 AM PST - 8 comments
November 22
sorry , but i just gotta ask . . .
in my referer logs is : http://assclown.metafilter.com
whats with the naming conventions around here ?
posted by mishaco to MetaFilter-Related at 9:42 PM PST - 13 comments
November 21
Just curious: I posted Wanda Hudak's phone number in a thread regarding her vile "25-cent bullet" comment; now it is gone.
As a public official, I do believe that she should be accountable for her official statements. Is posting a number which is a matter of public record a violation of MeFi etiquette and/or policy? Apologies, of course, if it is. I will respect the community/mathowie's wishes...but I will continue to think posting it was, and remains, valid.
posted by adamgreenfield to Etiquette/Policy at 10:56 PM PST - 36 comments
Is Metafilter IRC gone for good?
Is there now a quota of nearly zero on political and geopolitical threads? I never got the memo.
posted by ParisParamus to Etiquette/Policy at 4:33 PM PST - 18 comments
Mefi search functionality and double posts. Using google extensively I've developed the habit of searching for phrases by using speech marks in order to retrieve more specific results. Metafilter search doesn't seem to support this feature, and partly as a result I made a double post, after searching for
"moon trees" instead of
moon trees. I'll know for next time, but could more double posts result from other new users with the same habit? Possibly.
posted by nthdegx to Feature Requests at 2:07 PM PST - 24 comments
Bad,
Bad,
Bad,
Bad,
Good,
Good. What am I talking about? Ttles (the ones that go in the page title and into the RDF feed). Please remember, they're not room for an extra little joke, they're supposed to be informative of the topic. This isn't memepool, links don't have to be surprises.
posted by fvw to Etiquette/Policy at 11:04 AM PST - 18 comments
Okay - I need some help. There is a member here who I would like to contact privately to ask a question without derailing a blue thread. Unfortunately, this member has not provided an email address on their user page. [more inside...]
posted by Irontom to Etiquette/Policy at 7:25 AM PST - 36 comments
November 20
Is it possible, or even a good idea, to have font sizes in pixels rather than or in addition to the current scheme (which is in points)?
posted by moz to Feature Requests at 6:35 PM PST - 18 comments
This dangling baby . . . it vibrates? Every time Matt kills a "Jacko's dangling baby" post, another pops up to replace it.
We've talked about this before, but I think the (general) question needs to be raised: What, if anything, can be done to prevent reposting deleted stories? It's been pointed out that posters may not know that they're posting something that has been deleted before because, um, it's been deleted before! (And with wacky news like this, there can be any number of sources for the same story,
sorry.) Short of deleting the story every time it pops up, is there a better solution?
posted by mcwetboy to Etiquette/Policy at 5:10 AM PST - 79 comments
November 19
I want to break a rule here and propose a shoutout - a cheerleader post, if you will indulge me. I note a immense upward jump in the quality of both MeFi and MeTa posts and comments, with a corresponding downward jump in noise, trolling and trash. I note comments by Matt have a more relaxed tone than in the past few weeks. I see discussions kept to a mostly civil if not downright respectful tone. I observe efforts running the gamut from herculean to humorous by members like frykitty, y6y6y6, waxy, riffola, adrianhon, et al, to help make this wondrous place ever more enjoyable and user friendly. I want to say thank you, to everyone. [*Cue Dorothy, who taps heels of ruby slippers 3 times, chants "There's no place like Metafilter, there's no place like Metafilter, there's no place like Metafilter...*]
posted by Lynsey to MetaFilter-Related at 8:09 PM PST - 21 comments
Once again, I found myself trying to follow a link to the New York Times with a username and password I'd forgotten. I wondered if it might be good policy for people to post news.google.com searches to these links instead. For example, the recent link ...
An astonishing bequest could easily have been written out as
An astonishing bequest, and would not require people to log in.
posted by seanyboy to Etiquette/Policy at 11:18 AM PST - 17 comments
November 18
MeFi in the WSJ!
While the online version is only accessible to paid subscribers, the WSJ today (Monday) did a special section on the Internet ("How to ... entertain children ... search the web ... find friends ... etc.). One was "Find a Blog". MeFi was mentioned two or three times ... in fact it was the Blog recommmended as the one to start with (and in fact the first one mentioned in the article itself).
Kudos Matt. Yet another in a growing list of public recognitions of your skill and committment.
posted by MidasMulligan to MetaFilter-Related at 9:00 PM PST - 21 comments
"
Once again, for the fourth time, I have been banned from, and censored by, metafilter.com for politically incorrect speech."
posted by waxpancake to Bugs at 11:42 AM PST - 58 comments
November 16
November 15
Just posted
this thread in Mozilla. Reading the front page in Mozilla briefly showed a huge blank section between the last line of my post and the "posted by" line. The blank section didn't show up in IE and is fixed now in Mozilla. What happened? (FWIW, I'm absolutely sure I didn't include 25 or so blank lines at the end of the post.)
posted by mediareport to Bugs at 11:12 AM PST - 4 comments
November 14
is
morphic related to
pickover? 2/4 comments and 7/10 fpps have included pickover links (there's no email listed or i'd have made enquiries first). i'd dig out more examples, but i'm supposed to be working - it's not clear to me whether someone's being naughty, or just very fond of that site... [oh, and
please can we not have the usual lynch mob aggressive doodah if there is something fishy going on?]
posted by andrew cooke to Etiquette/Policy at 11:50 AM PST - 8 comments
November 13
I was recently reprimanded in a thread (politely, I should add), for invoking the name of a mefi regular who was not a participant in that thread at the time.
Is this poor form on my part, or is *the mefi who must not be named* being over-sensitive?
posted by backOfYourMind to Etiquette/Policy at 2:14 AM PST - 15 comments
November 12
Hey - if this isn't a new feature, or if I missed a memo, please tell me, but does each thread have it's own title now? I only ask because when I just thought better of posting to the "pancakes" thread and saw "Prattling On About Pancakes" up in the title bar, it startled me a wee bit, and now I see that each thread is similarly titled. New thing?
posted by yhbc to MetaFilter-Related at 7:31 PM PST - 20 comments
Am I just imagining it, or is there a lot less posting going on to Metafilter in the last few days. This is not necessarily bad, but the political threads are almost absent, and just the number of contributions is down. The Ebbs and flows at this joint fascinate me.
posted by ParisParamus to MetaFilter-Related at 5:21 PM PST - 17 comments
It's Tuesday, 8:42 PST, and there are only three posts on the front page - surely a record. Perhaps if users distributed their posts better over the 24 hours (and according to their timezones) there wouldn't be so much crowding? Quiet periods can easily be identified and this might be a way to avoid the rush, spread out and save resources.
posted by MiguelCardoso to MetaFilter-Related at 8:47 AM PST - 50 comments
November 11
November 8
The
About Page says:
...to hear some philosophies guiding the site and community, check out the new user message.
However, since signups are closed, the new user message no longer says much. Maybe whatever text was there (minus the signup form, of course) could be placed somewhere else so people can read it?
posted by staggernation to Feature Requests at 8:29 AM PST - 2 comments
November 7
A while back there was a discussion about the non-informative RSS/RDF/XML feed titles, due to the fact that metafilter/metatalk threads don't have 'titles' as such. Could we perhaps have a an extra field in the 'post an FPP' form marked 'Post title' or something that was less than some arbitrary limit of characters long and could be used for things like the feeds, and more importantly (and the reason I'm requesting this) for page titles.
I tend to open all the links I want to read in one go. When I click on the "(
n new)" link I don't go to the top of the story, and so when I get to the page after reading other FPPs, I don't know what this story's about anymore, and can't glance at the document title for a hint of the general subject as with many sites.
posted by fvw to Feature Requests at 4:30 PM PST - 7 comments
A
thread about one's attitude turned into a brief argument about spelling protocol, and it reminded me of a recent annoyance that I've seen on a few threads: can we stop with the posts that are
nothing but
mentioning a spelling error? Odds are if you saw it everyone else did, and if you
have to have the honor of being the first to point it out, could you at least
pretend to not just be cluttering the thread by actually contributing to the conversation as well?
posted by XQUZYPHYR to Etiquette/Policy at 11:44 AM PST - 92 comments
I recently posted a
thread about a nike shoe ad that I found interesting, and it did not go over well. How does one post a thread about an ad that you would like to show for the ad's sake, not the product? how do you assure the community that you are not part of some viral ad campaign?
Are there some "hot button" topics that are sure to send any thread into a deadfall?
posted by quibx to Etiquette/Policy at 9:10 AM PST - 24 comments
Poemfilter? I know we've entered into this territory many times before about movies, foods, beer, and recently politics, but is Metafilter really the place to post Nobel-prize winning poets on the front page?
posted by rodz to Etiquette/Policy at 7:29 AM PST - 59 comments
November 6
Uh... why was this deleted? I can only assume, thanks to Grangousier's sarcastic comment, that it was deemed to be a dupe of
this, but if that is the reason, someone needs to look again. While the original post was commenting on the removal of Ellen's ad from Apple's site (it's since come back), there have been no other posts about Ellen's ad and Ellen herself.
Apart from anything else, ripping articles from the front page without informing the poster and telling them why is not a good way to encourage new users to post good links. It's just demoralizing.
posted by Mwongozi to Etiquette/Policy at 11:40 AM PST - 21 comments
Matt's deletion of
this particular smudge of excrement drives home a point: for the most part, I feel that we don't do political discussion well. Anyone care to recommend some other sites better suited to political wrangling? I'll start with
Poliglut.
posted by PinkStainlessTail to MetaFilter-Related at 10:29 AM PST - 154 comments
November 5
"All posts are © their original authors". That's what it says at the bottom of this page. My question: is that true, and is it true whether it says so or not? A friend who owns a mailing list has been threatened with a liable suit by a person who feels they were "defamed" in a post by a member. Is the list owner really responsible for what members post? Could Matt be sued for members rants about real people, and is there a difference (as an example) between saying "Ashcroft is an asshole" and "I think Ashcroft is an asshole"?
posted by Mack Twain to Etiquette/Policy at 8:27 AM PST - 22 comments
November 4
[Bracket Etiquette]: For the benefit of users old and new and Metafilter usability in general, what warnings are considered essential or helpful when posting to the front page? [
Possible list inside.]
posted by MiguelCardoso to Etiquette/Policy at 7:26 PM PST - 29 comments
November 3
I don't know about you but it looks like the New York Times got wise to the
NYT Random Login Generator which mr_crash_davis hipped us all to back in April. All of a sudden I got a log in prompt when I clicked on an article and all I'm getting now is an error message when I try to log on with it. And you?.
posted by y2karl to MetaFilter-Related at 11:55 PM PST - 20 comments
Have we found God yet? Not picking on this post per se, but last week we had
this (142 comments, so you'd think the issue had been pretty thoroughly hashed out), and before that a bunch more that I listed
here, and I'm starting to wonder what the point is. NewsFilter posts get annoying, but at least the news changes; God's either there or He/She/It ain't, and I don't think we're going to find out by arguing about it on MeFi. If everybody else enjoys the never-ending discussion, fine, I'll just skip the threads, but I thought I'd ask.
posted by languagehat to Etiquette/Policy at 12:03 PM PST - 23 comments
November 2
There is a minor bug with the
text stylesheet. The a:hover in the head class is not declared, causing the text to disappear into the white background when moused over.
posted by xyzzy to Bugs at 10:24 AM PST - 18 comments
November 1
