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November 2004 Archives (all archives)
November 30
Crafting Good Posts Part XXMCIV: labelling. Things to note when making a post: [QuickTime] = "this link has quicktime movie content," [NSFW] = "you may want to view this discretely," [NYT] = "this link requires a New York Times registration..."
What else do you wanna know up front? Let's go over it for our neoFites.
posted by scarabic to Etiquette/Policy at 9:59 PM PST - 43 comments
I get a template error when trying to read
this thread, which is the top-ranked google result for the "it vibrates" meme.
posted by SpecialK to Bugs at 9:46 PM PST - 13 comments
Pony: We've heard it
before (a
bookmarklet was even developed for it), and the devout scour mefi.lofi for them... but in this age of all the new MeFi citizenry, I think it would be helpful to get an easily accessible repository for deleted FPPs up and running for the benefit new posters to dig through and discover why some posts must die. How easy, how hard, or how pointless?
posted by moonbird to Feature Requests at 7:55 PM PST - 21 comments
AskMeFi-related: Would it be possible to change the RSS feed from AskMeFi to put an excerpt of the question in the title tag, or whatever it is that's appearing in my Thunderbird newsreader as "Question number [#]"?
posted by Big Fat Tycoon to Feature Requests at 4:13 PM PST - 6 comments
November 29
It would be nice if the question
Are there any other community weblogs where you regularly participate? could be added to the standard welcome questionnaire ("What's the deal with your nickname? When did you first start using the Internet?" etc.)
[More inside.]
posted by MiguelCardoso to Feature Requests at 11:19 PM PST - 56 comments
Speaking of User Numbers, what happened to the population count on the front page? How are we supposed to know where we stand if we don't know how many others are shoehorned into this tiny webspace?
jus' kiddin' 'round, matt 'owie.
posted by wendell to Bugs at 7:50 PM PST - 9 comments
Say Matt, are we doing anything for World AIDS Day again this year? It's Wednesday, as you know I'm sure. Just wondering.
posted by crusiera to MetaFilter-Related at 4:00 PM PST - 3 comments
November 28
November 27
Anyone having trouble seeing all of the main page with Mozilla? I can see all the posts with IE, but with Mozilla (latest) I see one and only one post. Cleared cache, same problem...
posted by e40 to Bugs at 9:54 AM PST - 4 comments
November 26
This is not good. Angry modem may deny doing this himself (although it was posted only 13 minutes after
this), or may not. Worst case: some even worse asshat(s) who considers modem a role model will show up specifically to cause trouble. I do not WANT to be exposed to anus.
posted by wendell to Etiquette/Policy at 4:37 PM PST - 74 comments
Would it be possible to have the spell checker updated to accept some common words used here? Mefi and Metafilter (and all other variants thereof) get constantly tagged as misspellings, as do commonly used words like "snarky".
No big deal if it can't be done, but if it could it would be quite appreciated.
posted by Bugbread to Feature Requests at 4:18 PM PST - 10 comments
An honest question: how would you define "The best of the web" in late 2004 looking forward to 2005? Obviously
we live in a political world, but MetaFilter is a longer train of thought, I think. How can we balance current events with interesting and wonderful stuff? It's largely up to the noobs, I think. Matt has taken a huge leap of faith here and he is God but there must be a way to convert our indigenous zealots too. My fingers are crossed for the next few weeks.
posted by Cryptical Envelopment to Etiquette/Policy at 3:23 PM PST - 8 comments
Consistency in standards, and the lack thereof. Since the election, MeFi has gotten a lot calmer, and a lot more readable. Much of these is surely do to the deletion of highly partisan comments and threads, but it seems like some people aren't getting the message. Snarky FPPs like
this provoke obnoxious replies like part 3 of
this.
Is there a viable way to confine this crap to the political threads?
posted by mosch to Etiquette/Policy at 1:26 PM PST - 20 comments
November 25
With new sign-ups available again, it is tempting for people like
me to create a
new account with a username they actually like. The "problem," is losing post/comment stats and the ever prized lower user number. [MI]
posted by MrAnonymous to Feature Requests at 8:58 PM PST - 76 comments
So I keep noticing thousands of new usernames in comment threads (which is awesome), and I got to wondering about how user age/contribution patterns were evolving on a threadwise level with the new users settling in. Being a non-statistician, I didn't care enough to perform a serious study, so I just threw together a little bookmarklet that
tells you the average user age contributing to the page. It's totally worthless, but a bit of fun.
posted by DrJohnEvans to MetaFilter-Related at 1:29 PM PST - 47 comments
November 24
By my perhaps innacurate counting yesterday, November 23, 41 questions were posted to AskMe. Currently, the AskMe home displays the most recent 40, which means that yesterday's questions appeared on AskMe for less than 24 hours. For daily readers I guess this isn't a huge deal assuming you read AskMe around the same time each day, but for others perhaps a smaller font and a bigger query is in order?
posted by ChasFile to Etiquette/Policy at 12:42 PM PST - 31 comments
How does the community feel about links to products for sale, especially during the X-mas holiday shopping season? There seem to have been a few links which were pointing our products in their own right, without any broader point or purpose. Cool? Shill? Both?
posted by chaz to Etiquette/Policy at 9:14 AM PST - 12 comments
November 23
Back in
this thread,
XQUZYPHYR -- or as I like to pronounce it, "Ted", asked if anyone was taking part of
Blizzard's
World
of
Warcraft open beta. Well now the beta's done, and the retail game is in stores today. Anybody wanna gang up and roll dice?
posted by cavalier to MetaFilter-Related at 9:46 AM PST - 24 comments
November 22
Asking why a post was deleted has become trite and cliched recently, and I am hesitant to do so again so soon. And yet,
here is a genuinely
light-hearted humor post that's got some brilliant framing done by esch . . . and the deletion reason was 'um?'
posted by Ryvar to Etiquette/Policy at 6:58 PM PST - 193 comments
Whenever I try to make a post to a thread in the Blue, I get " Error Executing Database Query.
Invalid data contribute,post_comment_preview.cfm for CFSQLTYPE CF_SQL_INTEGER." and c.
Other people make posts, so I suppose there's some prob with my account, perhaps?
posted by signal to Bugs at 6:18 PM PST - 8 comments
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 PST - 12 comments
I, like many people, have added
Anonymous AskMetaFilter as a
contact, due to his/her interesting, thought-provoking, often sex-related questions and complete self-restraint when it comes to making snarky comments.
However, I noticed a weird phenomenon. On
my contacts page, I see several anonymous questions that link to deleted/nonexistant posts. These do not show up in "Anonymous AskMeFi"'s posting history, and I never saw them on the AskMe page. Did they ever appear on the main page? Is there a reason they are
still visible from my contacts page?
posted by louigi to Bugs at 1:01 PM PST - 11 comments
Help! I can't set up links within my comments. Beneath the comment box I only have Preview and Spellcheck: no link button, no bold, no italics. Is this because I'm new? I sure would like to be able to link to things to, you know, back up my comments. Thanks for your help!
posted by Fuzzy Monster to Bugs at 12:58 PM PST - 22 comments
OK Matt : I took your deletion of my previous two posts on this subject, the 2004 election controversy ( and probably several by other folks ) as an indication that either 1) you oppose posts on the election controversy or 2) you want quality posts. Since I don't like to think of you as a site manager inclined towards censorship, I took the deletion of those posts as an indication that they weren't of sufficient quality. So, I addressed #2 : I thought that was a
high quality post - well substantiated, and which presented an angle not yet discussed or noted elsewhere on the net. If you are opposed to discussion of the 2004 election, why not state that in your posting guidelines ? I feel that would be more helpful. Otherwise, new users may be confused for those unspecified posting categories which you are inclined to delete.
posted by troutfishing to Etiquette/Policy at 11:44 AM PST - 224 comments
November 21
I want my user page to be a color, like
orange clock's. How do I do that? I understand basic html and all that; I really would like to know the specific html to make your user page a color (other than blue; nothing against it, of course, I'm just more of a pink girl).
posted by ThePinkSuperhero to MetaFilter-Related at 8:47 PM PST - 22 comments
So from molatar to the animal dildos to a couple other sites that have been getting posted, mefi is getting something of a
PoE flavor. I realize that's only a couple examples, I've just sort of had a growing impression of this sort of thing over the past couple weeks.
I don't really have an opinion on this, but it seems like the sort of thing people might want to discuss. Is "posting links to funny people so you can laugh at them" a thing Metafilter wants to be doing? If so, might I suggest stealing PoE's prime directive: "never, ever contact the people so linked."
Let's... not be SA. In any way.
posted by kavasa to MetaFilter-Related at 7:00 PM PST - 57 comments
Noverber 18, 2004: Metafilter registrations become open for a nominal fee of $5.
November 18, 2004: The spam I receive at my previously clean inbox increases exponentially.
Coincidence?
I think not.
posted by scottymac to MetaFilter-Related at 5:53 PM PST - 43 comments
November 20
I'm a newbie here.
How do you quote the Preview feature when replying
to other comments in a thread?
btw,i synidicated MetaFilter on LiveJournal the other day.
posted by bearybipolar to Etiquette/Policy at 7:18 PM PST - 15 comments
Would it be hard to offer users to option of putting their posts under a
Creative Commons license? Users that go for it could have a (
cc) link (to the license they chose) put in the byline of their posts.
Just a bit more copyright-friendly.
posted by Count Ziggurat to Feature Requests at 11:13 AM PST - 24 comments
November 19
Matt how hard would it be to add the near this user to people outside the USA? Assuming the code just uses a proximity match on zip code a similiar thing could be done with postal codes in Canada and I guess the UK.
All our non-US members, does your coutry have a similiar code?
posted by Mitheral to Feature Requests at 8:25 PM PST - 16 comments
A MeFi newbie question. I tried deleting cookies, but I can't find a way to post/comment nor can I find a way to get back to the references page. Is this a *feature* for New Users, or did I do something wrong on say the Preferences page, or what?
posted by davy to Bugs at 9:48 AM PST - 13 comments
Is it possible/good karma to turn off the adbar on the side, now that I'm one of the (mass of) elite Metafilter users? I don't want to do it in general -- paying for the existence of MeFi is something I'm quite happy to do by showing ads -- but from school I get a fair amount less bandwidth (University wireless is a mess) and every little bit I can trim out is a good thing by me.
posted by ChrisR to Etiquette/Policy at 8:05 AM PST - 7 comments
Metafilter is one of the only membership sites on the web that doesn't allow a user to reset their password. Now that you have some help with the coding, and to facilitate sponsored memberships and take some of the workload off of you (not to mention provide all the normal benefits that prompt sites to allow password changing), wouldn't it make sense to add a password change widget to the site? This can't be very complicated coding. Or is there some specific reason why you don't want this feature?
posted by rushmc to Feature Requests at 6:29 AM PST - 28 comments
MeFiMentor: If you're one of the bazillion new folks here and have a question or two that maybe seems too dorky for MetaTalk and too 'Filter related for AskMe, or maybe you just want to run a front page post by someone, feel free to IM someone who's been around the block a bit. Willing old-timers inside...
posted by jessamyn to MetaFilter-Related at 5:46 AM PST - 49 comments
November 18
Holy mother of god. It's official, even though I was kind of worried about ponying (heh) up the dough for a couple of high ticket servers, I made enough money off the $5 signups today to pay for one year's hosting. So I want to say thanks to all the new users for ensuring the future of this place. I love ya. Some more news inside
posted by mathowie to MetaFilter-Related at 11:42 PM PST - 68 comments
Prospective new users needing help? Earlier the idea was discussed of existing users helping subsidize new users who can't afford the signup fee. Any oldbies willing to help out in this regard? [more inside]
posted by louigi to MetaFilter-Related at 5:48 PM PST - 38 comments
What with the flood of signups, user# 20000 is coming right up. Matt, I think you should auction or raffle it off for charity, or do something fun with it.
posted by theora55 to MetaFilter-Related at 2:19 PM PST - 30 comments
Are these new logins, having paid, getting to see the new ad-free MeFi?
Does the $5 fee come with an uptime guarantee?
Lastly, will Mathowie pay me $5 to rescind my login? Really lastly, what is the returns policy for those who have paid their $5?
posted by dayvin to MetaFilter-Related at 10:45 AM PST - 73 comments
November 17
I noticed that the AskMe "older" and "newer" thread links at the bottom of the page don't actually point to the thread's immediate neighbour, but end up skipping one or two posts in either direction.
posted by antifreez_ to Bugs at 5:48 PM PST - 1 comments
There are a couple of threads going in AskMe dealing with 'net addiction workarounds...Can they be combined into a single thread? Because
I can't stop clicking back and forth between them!
posted by stupidsexyFlanders to Etiquette/Policy at 12:11 PM PST - 5 comments
I have at least five more recent journal entries from soldiers in Iraq that I wanted to share, but I can't link people directly to these entries, as some of the posts are locked. Even though I provided a screenshot
last time I shared a letter, showing the original post but censoring names, pictures, and possible OpSec issues, I still heard from people saying that
it doesn't sound real and
another person who supposedly wanted to send it to Snopes. So, my question is this... how best should I present this kind of material, and how can I / who can I trust to take a look at my sources and vouch for their authenticity, while still respecting these soldier's confidentiality?
posted by insomnia_lj to Etiquette/Policy at 7:55 AM PST - 26 comments
November 16
November 15
How many of you (if any) have had issues with MeFi interferring with real life? I use a pseudonym because way back in the dark ages of BBS's, I regularly indulged in flamewars and I ended up getting prankcalls at all hours and such. Now, I try not to get sucked into flamewars, but I have a feeling I'm still kind of a dick online, so I hang on to a pseudonym. How about you?
posted by keswick to MetaFilter-Related at 9:48 PM PST - 54 comments
New post count might have some sort of race condition in AskMe:
"For gamblers, what's the attraction? [more inside]
posted by jonmc at 7:10 PM PST -
1 comments (2 new)"
I think the second comment might have been posted in that split second between querying the total and counting up the new posts.
posted by i_am_joe's_spleen to Bugs at 7:21 PM PST - 13 comments
November 13
November 12
So there's roughly 8,000 questions now in AskMe (# of June questions x 11 months).... May I humbly request an update on the tagging project, or any other ponies that could help make this the great resource it's screaming to be? And has any more thought been given to how metadata could be added to the questions already in the db?
posted by stupidsexyFlanders to Feature Requests at 10:19 AM PST - 24 comments
November 11
Given the recent
Firefox release / post, how about a customize option to have links open in new Tabs?
(Not sure about the technical ease / feasibility)
posted by daveg to Feature Requests at 10:13 AM PST - 25 comments
Dear MetaTalk,
I never thought I'd be writing to you, but I wanted to tell you about the hot action at the SF MeetUp last night. [more inside]
posted by Kafkaesque to MetaFilter Gatherings at 9:01 AM PST - 33 comments
So, I'm addicted to Ask, aka the green.
What I really want to do is subscribe to the comment threads - when a new post occurs, I want someone to run into my office (my home, my bedroom, whatever) and shout up and down the answer is here. Or there was a followup question. (6 new) just doesn't help - especially if a thread a scrolled off page.
Or it could be a little link on the homepage (customized for me for threads I'm watching/participating in.)
posted by filmgeek to Feature Requests at 4:18 AM PST - 3 comments
November 10
How do you regard the time you spend on MetaFilter? Is it information time (
keeping up with the web; news-gathering); social time (
discussing; engaging with others); fun pure and simple; vegetative-time (
like watching indifferent TV); time-wasting when having a break from work...or what?
[
Apologies if this question is of no interest to anyone but me.]
posted by MiguelCardoso to MetaFilter-Related at 9:20 PM PST - 53 comments
Bug: When trying to go to
this thread, I get a connection failure instead of a thread. It happens consistently, while others work.
posted by SpecialK to Bugs at 7:56 PM PST - 6 comments
What happened to my thread about the November 9, 2004 Christopher Hitchens article on Slate.com? I know it was not DP (I searched), so that's not the answer. What exactly are the guidelines for deleting a thread? In light of the fact that I though my thread was relevant, appropriate and interesting I think the guidelines should be posted somewhere or e-mailed to MIFI uses.
posted by Bag Man to Etiquette/Policy at 12:32 PM PST - 59 comments
How not to respond in a thread. I don't like callouts, and I'm not calling anyone out. I was inspired by the good discussions in the green and I believe this thread highlights how Metafilter can be improved. In it so far, we have a throwaway irrelevant "I'm an atheist, this does not apply to me" comment, we have a non sequitur comment, an "I agree" without any backup, and a purely reaction provoking comment of whether God has a penis and can take dumps (I do understand the point being made). Basically, we can do better. I'm far from perfect and probably have a lot of throwaway comments to my name -- but could we all try a little harder to think before we comment?
posted by geoff. to Etiquette/Policy at 11:43 AM PST - 46 comments
Admin for a day: To raise money (and give himself an occasional break) mathowie could occasionally auction off 24-hour admin rights. These temporary admins could delete posts, suspend miscreants and maybe even manually register new users.
posted by timeistight to Feature Requests at 9:47 AM PST - 57 comments
http://www.metafilter.com/mefi/36862 is nothing but pure hate speech. And uninteresting boring hate speech at that.
posted by konolia to Etiquette/Policy at 5:46 AM PST - 55 comments
November 9
FPP returns time out error but posts end up on main page anyway.
It just happened again.
Its not a major problem, just a minor one. But what's up with it?
posted by fenriq to Bugs at 10:38 AM PST - 3 comments
Ooops.
I missed the FPP with a similar topic
two posts below because of my habit of skipping links to Windows Media. I didn't mean to post something so topically similar to something else already posted on the front page.
Is there a way to move my post to a comment in the previous one?
posted by eustacescrubb to Etiquette/Policy at 7:37 AM PST - 4 comments
November 8
Hi,--
I could swear I saw a link in a thread on Mefi recently that debunke the supposed correlation between voter intelligence and voting preferences, with a link to a spreadsheet containing the actual correlation between the two. Except I can't find it now and I'm wondering if the thread got nuked or if it was tucked away in a thread of a different topic. Does anyone remember this?
posted by mecran01 to MetaFilter-Related at 3:06 PM PST - 25 comments
November 7
November 6
Bit of an Ask Me SQL bug:
this thread tried to entice me by offering 10 new comments in a 9 comment thread. Slattern!
posted by yerfatma to Bugs at 1:14 PM PST - 2 comments
One of the most questionable trends emerging at MeFi lately is the MetaTalk treads complaining about post deletions, linking directly to the 'hidden' threads (effectively un-hiding them), where the usually awful discussions cut off by the Hand of Mathowie get a chance to continue raging in the Grey.
Maybe the way Matt deletes threads needs to be changed. Maybe closing discussions gone bad early instead of deleting. Maybe deleted threads on the blue need to completely disappear, like on the green & grey. How about adding to the posting page, a list of the most recent deletions with Matt's reasons for deletion (Hey, that might prevent triple-double-posts). Any other better suggestions for implimenting the FPP Death Penalty?
posted by wendell to Feature Requests at 11:57 AM PST - 44 comments
ask.mefi is doing the multiple-date-headers thing again. There's a "November 6" header above each of the first three posts.
posted by neckro23 to Bugs at 9:43 AM PST - 4 comments
November 5
Is it just me, or has the recent GOP win emboldened the christian right here at mefi? More inside folks...
posted by Richat to Etiquette/Policy at 6:58 PM PST - 107 comments
Since 12 October 2004, when the
AnonAskMe feature was created, there have been
37 questions asked
anonymously. Matt, how many, if any, questions have you passed over and not posted? Any reason why?
(I'm not critiquing the decision to not post the question, just trying to get a complete picture on how people are using the feature.)
posted by NotMyselfRightNow to MetaFilter-Related at 4:27 PM PST - 18 comments
Is it possible to log in to MeFi using the BlueBerry browser? login_action.cfm just throws up a blank page.
posted by mkultra to Bugs at 1:00 PM PST - 5 comments
MeFiSF Reminder and Date Change (due to special guest's travel schedule): Wednesday, November 10, 7 PM, at the
Phoenix (Valencia and 19th). More BARTable than Lucky 13! Nice area with good seating in the back! Food available! And actual living, breathing females!
Email me if you want an email reminder.
posted by caitlinb to MetaFilter Gatherings at 12:58 PM PST - 1 comments
I recently had to switch (temporarily) from OSX/Safari-FireFox to Windows 2000/FireFox. Since then, every time I post a thread on the Front Page, I get an error message. Funnily enough, I then open another tab and see that the thread went to the Front Page anyway. But I get the error message every single time I post. See inside for text of error message.
posted by matteo to Bugs at 12:32 PM PST - 4 comments
I had my finger on the button of a new MeTa thread, ready to congratulate Matt on having the discretion to NOT delete the Rape Haiku post. Unfortunately, that's a thread
that will never exist.
posted by Ryvar to Bugs at 10:46 AM PST - 137 comments
November 4
November 3
So. Jay-Run was smacking me around earlier when I tried to visit the site. Enough post-election traffic to cause problems or something else? Just curious, the site was really speedy last night when I was checking the huge election threads.
posted by bargle to Uptime at 4:08 PM PST - 12 comments
It seems at the moment, that the US President will not change and will last another four years. I'm going to admit that I considered it a small bonus that if there was a victory for the contender, there was a glimmer of hope that the culture of MeFi
might have shifted away from politics. Do you think that would have happened? We have another four years ahead of us...is it time to finally bury the dead horse and just admit, yes, the Blue is (and perhaps has always been) a community
political weblog now? There's always AskMeFi I say.
posted by Stan Chin to Etiquette/Policy at 8:43 AM PST - 75 comments
November 2
Let me just say for the record that it's noon, eastern standard time, and as far as I can tell none of the new ElectionFilter threads have devolved into the mess of baseless accusations and screaming threats I was afraid I'd see today. Thanks to everyone for keeping cool heads on this so far, and whatever happens I hope we can keep it this way. I know we're all tired of it.
posted by caution live frogs to Etiquette/Policy at 9:16 AM PST - 57 comments
If any folks would like to escape from the probable concentration on the US election here for the next day or two (and maybe many weeks after), you are all very welcome to come and discuss European issues over a cup of tea and scones at
Viewropa...
posted by humuhumu to MetaFilter-Related at 9:14 AM PST - 11 comments
COLOR THEORY CRYBABYFILTER: I love the blue and grey of metafilter, but find the green of AskMefi to overwhelm me, and in kind of a swampy pea green soup way where I can feel ill if I read it too long. Is it possible to offer another background color, similar to the white screen you can get in your preferences when the Metafilter blue gets similarly distracting? I love AskMefi but that green really gets overwhelming at points.
posted by Peter H to Feature Requests at 9:07 AM PST - 13 comments
A while ago (years?) there was a link posted on MeFi to a flash game where the objective was to kill terrorists by dropping bombs on them. The trick was, that when you killed terrorists you created more from the people around who took up the fight... Anyone remember it? I've tried a few searches, but nothing so far (there are A LOT of terrorist killing flash games)
posted by sycophant to MetaFilter-Related at 3:12 AM PST - 6 comments
November 1
Maybe I've been doing something wrong, but today's the first time in months that the spell-checker has worked for me. It's been endless piano-keys for me each time I've tried it, all the way up to the new server install. Brav0!
posted by scarabic to Uptime at 9:52 AM PST - 5 comments
I have a question about Metafilter's Textad policy. In general, I find the ads relevant and useful --- I'm far more likely to click through here than on other sites.
However, I noticed today that there's an ad running that asks people to "Play Texas Hold'em", posted by checknraise. Those of you who run Movable Type or Wordpress blogs might have noticed a recent wave of comment spam advertising "Texas Hold'em".
If I had ads on my blog, I wouldn't accept them from people who are also spammers. Does Metafilter have a policy on this type of thing, and is there any way to dump the "Texas Hold'em" ads?
posted by robcorr to Etiquette/Policy at 12:46 AM PST - 14 comments