December 2011 Archives (all archives)

December 31

Who wants post-Quonsmas presents? Or: Metafilter Craft Exchange?

Who wants post-Quonsmas presents? Or: Metafilter Craft Exchange? [more inside]
posted by kittenmarlowe to MetaFilter-Related at 12:22 PM PST - 125 comments

MeFites' Choice Awards

So I suggested it in the original contest post and now I am taking the initiative -- let's have a MeFites' Choice Awards segment of the December Best Post contest. [more inside]
posted by griphus to Feature Requests at 10:59 AM PST - 106 comments

I don't have kids, but I DO have your answer...

What do we call the phenomenon we see in this thread? [more inside]
posted by 256 to Etiquette/Policy at 7:51 AM PST - 41 comments

December 30

My milkshake brings all the boys etc.

Two of the top 20 posts that Mlkshk saw this year are Metafilter related. [more inside]
posted by Phire to MetaFilter-Related at 6:56 PM PST - 54 comments

Another mefite on Jeopardy

When I tuned in to Jeopardy tonight one of the contestants was talking about his best-selling book, which was apparently based in part on this AskMe. Not a very prolific member, but still has an account.
posted by TedW to MetaFilter-Related at 4:58 PM PST - 20 comments

THINK SAFETY

It has been 10 days since the last banning. In the words of Jessamyn, "None of us have ever seen the number go this high."
posted by subbes to MetaFilter-Related at 12:45 PM PST - 227 comments

EditMe

Desjardins suggested an edit for your answer to "How do I properly bury the body?" [more inside]
posted by Brandon Blatcher to Feature Requests at 5:38 AM PST - 75 comments

Ending in ? does not a question make

Where does a question like this fall on the ok/not ok continuum? [more inside]
posted by resiny to Etiquette/Policy at 3:31 AM PST - 69 comments

December 29

If your website is full of assholes, it's your fault

Mefite[1] Anil Dash[2] writes[3]: "Simply learning from disciplines like urban planning, zoning regulations, crowd control, effective and humane policing, and the simple practices it takes to stage an effective public event, we can come up with a set of principles to prevent the overwhelming majority of the worst behaviors on the Internet." Examples? Why Metafilter, of course, (as well as Stack Exchange sites, of which he is a board member). [more inside]
posted by Tuesday After Lunch to MetaFilter-Related at 1:57 PM PST - 90 comments

Annotate MetaFilter user-links everywhere with a black/grey/white indication of user-number.

Annotate mefi user-links with a black/grey/white indication of user-number. [more inside]
posted by sarah_pdx to MetaFilter-Related at 12:43 PM PST - 74 comments

Secret quonsar 2011 roundup

It's Secret quonsar Roundup Time! We're trying to make sure everyone gets their gift this year. Please check your email and respond if you have an email from us. If you have any questions talk to us Meanwhile, we thought we'd share some fun statistics and next steps. [more inside]
posted by julen to MetaFilter-Related at 6:11 AM PST - 49 comments

December 28

A new you for the new year with Team MetaFilter

Do you want to be a fitter MeFite in 2012? Join (or re-join) the MetaFilter team on Health Month for January and harness the awesome power of social support in meeting your goals. [more inside]
posted by drlith to MetaFilter-Related at 6:20 PM PST - 111 comments

to br or not to br

Line breaks being added to post after I preview an FPP? [more inside]
posted by zarq to Bugs at 1:54 PM PST - 9 comments [closed]

wtfwitter?

Pretty sure an admin is not responsible for this. But: can anybody explain the existence of the MetaWTFilter twitter account? I'm guessing at this moment that it is not spam as it would be following more than 5 people if it were.
posted by JoeXIII007 to MetaFilter-Related at 11:12 AM PST - 87 comments

Come on gguys

I cracked a joke and it got deleted. Guys, you melted my snowflake. [more inside]
posted by phaedon to MetaFilter-Related at 9:16 AM PST - 128 comments

December 27

Bad deletion.

I think this was a bad deletion. [more inside]
posted by empath to Etiquette/Policy at 5:35 PM PST - 256 comments

I keep stopping by the Side Bar, but it's never open!

Back in October, jessamyn said, "We seem to have a small but dedicated group of people who use the fantastic flag, but a much larger group of favoriters. ... [P]aying more attention to them and being a bit more active on the sidebar (which is my job, more or less) is a good idea." But we've had only 3 sidebar entries in all of December, the most recent Dec 7. Can I respectfully ask jessamyn to do more sidebarring? [more inside]
posted by hippybear to MetaFilter-Related at 4:59 PM PST - 86 comments

Help me find cat video

If I can find this cat video again, it will make my children happy. [more inside]
posted by not that girl to MetaFilter-Related at 8:34 AM PST - 43 comments

December 26

Who protested, "It's SCIENCE!"

I wanted to mention a bit of MeFi history in this AskMe but maybe not really appropriate, there -- anyway, couldn't find the links; but there was some other discussion about cannabis several years ago, a famous flame-out with a protesting voice, "It's SCIENCE!" Anybody remember the details?
posted by Rash to MetaFilter-Related at 8:01 AM PST - 196 comments

December 25

Ringle Jock Bell

Merry Christmas to all and too all a Jingle Rock Bell, User PinkStainlessTail's mefi xmas classic.
posted by troika to MetaFilter-Related at 5:06 PM PST - 28 comments

December 24

Hard work and learning

Happy Holidays and Thanks to the members and staff for a year of learning, entertainment, provocation, rethinking, skepticism, compassion and every bodies hard work.
posted by rmhsinc to MetaFilter-Related at 8:50 AM PST - 283 comments

December 23

Everyone's favorite band sucks.

We've had roll calls for a bunch of other social networking sites, and now it is last.fm's turn. So tell me, who are you? (Who who? Who who?) [more inside]
posted by griphus to MetaFilter-Related at 12:41 PM PST - 108 comments

MetaTalk Holiday Queue

Happy holidays everyone. As we did around US Thanksgiving, we're implementing a queue for MetaTalk posts over the next few days and then again around the new year. [more inside]
posted by pb to Uptime at 11:33 AM PST - 106 comments

A "staff" indicator for taz

Did I miss a meeting? I cannot figure out why taz doesn't have a nifty "staff" indicator when she posts (example). Hope me?
posted by Irontom to MetaFilter-Related at 8:10 AM PST - 74 comments

Time stamp for posterity.

Could we get a time stamp added to deletion reasons? They are the only type of comment that isn't time stamped, so all we know is that the deletion occurred sometime after the last comment (or sometime between posting and any comments).
posted by OmieWise to Feature Requests at 5:04 AM PST - 43 comments

December 22

Myopic Filter

MetaFilter hall monitors deleted my post after ignoring it twice because they have the souls of Tracy Flick or because they are intimidated by the CIA. [more inside]
posted by evabraunstein to Etiquette/Policy at 4:52 PM PST - 74 comments [closed]

What percentage of FPP links get clicked?

What percentage of FPP links get clicked?
posted by Trurl to MetaFilter-Related at 4:01 PM PST - 57 comments

December 21

Calling out all participants in the Slactivist thread...

I'd like to draw everyone's attention to the recent thread here concerning the Slactivist blog. [more inside]
posted by Ipsifendus to MetaFilter-Related at 7:44 AM PST - 76 comments

Tab... POST

A small commenting feature request: Change the tab order so that tabbing out of the comment box puts the focus on the post button. [more inside]
posted by ChrisR to Feature Requests at 7:32 AM PST - 51 comments

December 20

It's a small MetaFilter world

The contacts section allows us to indicate who we've actually met. Would the infodump be able to tell us who among us has met the most MeFites? I know it's dependent on people selecting the "met" box when listing a contact, but I'm curious about the number.
posted by ambrosia to MetaFilter-Related at 9:47 AM PST - 99 comments

December 19

"And now to add a quote from Ayn Rand ..."

Related to pony still in the stable: how often do you update your profile? [more inside]
posted by Marisa Stole the Precious Thing to Feature Requests at 4:27 PM PST - 120 comments

Can't find best-of-mefi post

I recall reading a MetaTalk post a few months back asking what the best and most classic MetaFilter posts/comments are. However, I can't find it. [more inside]
posted by LSK to MetaFilter-Related at 3:33 PM PST - 6 comments

Metafilter Etiquette 101: Obit Threads

Kim Jong Il died yesterday and everybody took a long, satisfying shit on his corpse. Some were confused about why was this OK, though. The mods felt this has been explained before and needed no further explanation. I disagree. [more inside]
posted by falameufilho to Etiquette/Policy at 10:33 AM PST - 437 comments

Legofilter

We've had a Lego-based FPP every day this week. Baader-Meinhof Phenomenon or are our friends in Denmark making a concentrated media push around Christmastime?
posted by modernserf to MetaFilter-Related at 6:04 AM PST - 75 comments

December 18

It is done.

In case you missed it, metafilter was down for maintainance for a bit last night.
posted by timsteil to MetaFilter-Related at 10:15 AM PST - 125 comments

December 17

Stop click and listen

I seem to post a lot of FPPs that revolve around podcast or other audio content these days, and It's gotten me curious... how often do you stop and listen to the content in links of that kind? Is it more or less likely than the chances you would watch a video?
posted by Artw to MetaFilter-Related at 2:38 PM PST - 101 comments

AskMe Dis-ad-biguation

Google ads on AskMe pages makes them very confusing to read (for non-members who see them). Is it possible to visually separate them a bit more from the content? Or move the ads below the "More Inside" content?
posted by spiderskull to MetaFilter-Related at 1:26 PM PST - 69 comments

Better late than never: Issue 8 of MeFi Mag is here

It's taken a while, but Issue#8 of MeFi Mag has finally arrived! [more inside]
posted by Brandon Blatcher to MetaFilter-Related at 12:53 PM PST - 39 comments

AskMe in the classroom

Can I (or anyone) use AskMe questions for educational purposes? [more inside]
posted by to recite so charmingly to Etiquette/Policy at 7:04 AM PST - 14 comments

December 16

MeFi NBA League

The NBA is giving us the best Xmas present possible this year: A season starting on Xmas Day. As a result, the MeFi NBA league is back, [more inside]
posted by reenum to MetaFilter-Related at 2:54 PM PST - 18 comments

Forgotten spymaster

Seeking post from a while ago on a forgotten Cold War novelist who was a master of the genre. [more inside]
posted by foxy_hedgehog to MetaFilter-Related at 9:43 AM PST - 13 comments

Are.you.serious?

This is going to be my first feature request on the site. I was wondering if it'd be possible to add a Sarcastic Font tag to our arsenal of HTML when posting. As many of you are aware, it is sometimes extremely hard to convey sarcasm in written text, and I think this would really benefit some people by spelling out when someone is being sarcastic. Here are some examples of its use. Thank you for your time, and just so you know, HAMBURGER jokes are so 2011 (or whenever that was first introduced).
posted by gman to Feature Requests at 7:39 AM PST - 118 comments

December 15

Mefi's own Languagehat

(mefi's own) Languagehat ranks #1 on the list of people asked about their favorite reads in 2011 by The Millions. I'm sure there are a couple other mefites on the list, too.
posted by crunchland to MetaFilter-Related at 7:07 PM PST - 38 comments

AskMe songs about courage

Help me find a particular AskMe about music? [more inside]
posted by b33j to MetaFilter-Related at 4:41 PM PST - 14 comments

Scheduled Maintenance Saturday

We're going to have some downtime for maintenance this Saturday night at 10pm Pacific Time. [more inside]
posted by pb to Uptime at 2:15 PM PST - 151 comments

I was there!

IRL Pony: Can we get an "I was There!" option for past events? [more inside]
posted by schmod to Feature Requests at 12:28 PM PST - 20 comments

Better question?

This question didn't get much of a response - one answer on the green, and one in mefi mail. Why not? [more inside]
posted by RandlePatrickMcMurphy to MetaFilter-Related at 7:32 AM PST - 45 comments

Mail This Thing To A Friend

Has there ever been talk about a "mail this question to a friend" thingy for askmefi? I frequently see a question and know someone who would know the answer but completely forget to actually tell them about the post. This would probably also work on the blue... "mail this post to a friend." I never use those on sites, but I have that on my blog and I'm always surprised how much it gets used. Maybe put it up there under the "Share:" links?
posted by Blake to Feature Requests at 6:48 AM PST - 42 comments

December 14

Look for post: don't want to be a gay mom

Looking for a metafilter post about a mother who was pro-gay but didn't want their child to grow up to be gay. [more inside]
posted by The Devil Tesla to MetaFilter-Related at 10:24 AM PST - 11 comments

Another mention of of our glorious founder and metafilter.

Gizmodo mentions mathowie as one of the most 25 viral people on the internet. He came in at number 13. [more inside]
posted by royalsong to MetaFilter-Related at 7:44 AM PST - 67 comments

December 13

War and Peace Character Cheat Sheet

War and Peace Character Cheat Sheet? [more inside]
posted by arha to MetaFilter-Related at 11:12 PM PST - 23 comments

Link fix in Daicon post

Are any mods asleep? Post ponies. I could use some admin hope. The Daicon post has the second link a duplicate of the first, a mistake I discovered I made within a minute of posting it. Can I get it fixed? [more inside]
posted by JHarris to MetaFilter-Related at 9:30 PM PST - 3 comments [closed]

How will I search for my favorite pony?

Wondering if it's possible to limit a search to just within my favorited posts? [more inside]
posted by amanda to Feature Requests at 1:35 PM PST - 45 comments

Ten percent of nothin' is, let me do the math here... nothin' and a nothin', carry the nothin'...

An Infodump Question™ and followup to this post: What is the average number of favorites per post received for each of the various MeFi subsites? Per comment? Average number of favorites given and received for the userbase?
posted by zarq to MetaFilter-Related at 11:00 AM PST - 26 comments

Lonely Train

I'm looking for a train video. [more inside]
posted by Evilspork to MetaFilter-Related at 10:41 AM PST - 20 comments

December 12

Deleted Questions

I don't think posters on the green should be able to have their questions deleted just because they are done with them or don't like the answers they are receiving. [more inside]
posted by insectosaurus to Etiquette/Policy at 6:23 PM PST - 95 comments

December 11

Bad AskMe Deletions.

These are Bad AskMe Comment Deletions. [more inside]
posted by Poet_Lariat to Etiquette/Policy at 8:56 PM PST - 188 comments

December 10

Blue shells, nothing but blue shells... from now on

Join the Mario Kart 7 MetaFilter community! [more inside]
posted by porn in the woods to MetaFilter-Related at 8:23 PM PST - 17 comments

At least we're not down to 140 characters

Has the maximum length for comments been shortened some time in the past six months or so? I see more and more comments getting cut off that seem long-ish but hardly Treaty-of-Westphalia long. Perhaps there was a discussion about this and I missed it. I hate to request ponies, but perhaps a "characters remaining" count for the text-entry field or a warning on hitting Post would help alleviate the problem.
posted by adamrice to Feature Requests at 9:42 AM PST - 63 comments

Please Police Your Google Search Parameters

I'd like to respectfully ask everyone to please clean up their Google search URLs. [more inside]
posted by ob1quixote to Etiquette/Policy at 8:39 AM PST - 86 comments

December 9

In Praise of Faze

Valiant defender of the bucolic splendors of suburbia, sprawl, and the Midwest. [more inside]
posted by leotrotsky to MetaFilter-Related at 5:21 PM PST - 250 comments

Creative Writing

What are the most creatively written posts on Metafilter? [more inside]
posted by mokin to MetaFilter-Related at 1:33 PM PST - 33 comments

December 8

Can My Comments take me to my last comment on a post.

A pony request for the "my comments" view. It would be nice to be able to jump to the last comment one made in a topic from the "My Comments" view. It is sometimes difficult to follow the conversation from ones last post without searching.
posted by humanfont to Feature Requests at 9:14 AM PST - 18 comments

Please help me find a comment

A while back on Metafilter somebody in a comment gave a name to the phenomenon where a naive computer user would go through a crazy number of steps to achieve a result that a user who knows what they're doing would get in a much more straightforward manner. So, to manipulate an image they'd found online, they might print it out, then take a photograph of it, then email the JPG file to themselves, then etc., etc... This sort of thing. Does anybody remember the comment I'm talking about, and the name it gave for this? I think it may have been a comment by one of the mods, but I can't quite remember it or find it by searching. Thanks! (I ask because I'm sure it'll be a perfect description of the map on this page.)
posted by Richard Holden to MetaFilter-Related at 4:00 AM PST - 139 comments

December 7

67: Dam

This podcast covers the tail end of October as well as November. We sort of steered clear of anything from December for the next podcast that will recap the Awesome Post Contest. This one was run high and tight, only at an hour and with no edits during the time we talked. [more inside]
posted by mathowie to MeFi Podcast at 10:00 PM PST - 26 comments

Yearly MeFi Retrospective Podcast?

Podcasts of notable things on MeFi each month or so are fun. Maybe a larger scope would be funner. Would a podcast about the entire past year be possible? [more inside]
posted by mccarty.tim to MetaFilter-Related at 4:57 PM PST - 25 comments

Mr. Marsh from the old Amusement Park!

Idea for the The Great Mystery Box of MeFi [more inside]
posted by RolandOfEld to MetaFilter-Related at 1:33 PM PST - 110 comments

The mystery continues...

The Phantom Gifter strikes again. [more inside]
posted by jonmc to MetaFilter-Related at 12:09 PM PST - 44 comments

What is Cool for $500!

Metafilter's own chicobangs on Jeopardy tonight! [more inside]
posted by tizzie to MetaFilter-Related at 7:13 AM PST - 112 comments

December 6

Pick Your Bowl

Who's up for some college bowl picking on Yahoo? [more inside]
posted by Fister Roboto to MetaFilter-Related at 2:20 PM PST - 14 comments

I'll take "bad ideas in advertising" for $10,000, Alex

In which our illustrious founder details an ad pitch from corporate America to MetaFilter.
posted by scalefree to MetaFilter-Related at 12:54 PM PST - 125 comments

It's as if people are still surprised that PayPal is terrible...

So we're Outragefilter now? Or are we going with "but there's people giving PayPal alternatives which makes it barely legitimate" on this one?

I only ask because I also have some doozies from reddit ready to go.
posted by Talez to Etiquette/Policy at 10:52 AM PST - 69 comments

I'm a fan of descriptive names, personally

Is "community weblog" still a good description of Metafilter? The word "weblog" is just a long form of "blog," according to Merriam-Webster, and all other dictionaries I checked. "Blog" has come to mean "a Web site containing the writer's or group of writers' own experiences, observations, opinions, etc., and often having images and links to other Web sites." (from here) But you don't really need a dictionary to tell you that "blogs" tend to be about people's personal opinions and experiences. So "community weblog" doesn't strike me as an apt description of a site where posts on the main page are required to be impersonal. Might it be time to change the name "community weblog" to something else?
posted by Net Prophet to MetaFilter-Related at 4:36 AM PST - 214 comments

December 5

Could we gamble on this?

December best post contest - stats related question. [more inside]
posted by allkindsoftime to MetaFilter-Related at 11:37 PM PST - 32 comments

December 4

Stay out of the news, Dammit!

How many Occupy posts is too many? The Mods deleted this one and that one within minutes.
posted by twoleftfeet to Etiquette/Policy at 10:55 PM PST - 207 comments

Hello haystack.

Looking for a needle. Back in 2004/2005, there was a response on Ask MeFi (I think) in which the commenter explained how he had made peace with/improved his life. I recall him saying that he just woke up one morning and decided to start doing more to help out around the house (i.e., washing dishes, doing things with his children, etc.). [more inside]
posted by ajr to MetaFilter-Related at 5:11 PM PST - 32 comments

December 3

Jessamyn article from In The Library With The Lead Pipe

"I wrote a book in 2009 and 2010. It’s getting published this year (2011) sometime. Let me tell you about what it's like writing a print book for a large trade publisher during the long leisurely sunset of print. It was different from what I thought it would be." Jessamyn looks at print books from a writer’s first-person perspective. [more inside]
posted by paleyellowwithorange to MetaFilter-Related at 2:38 PM PST - 39 comments

December 2

It's REALLY important you know I have cool taste in music

Is the Last.fm widget busted? For several weeks I've just been seeing "Couldn't load the tracks from Last.fm" on my profile and everyone else's, using both Firefox on OSX and iOS.
posted by yellowbinder to Bugs at 1:39 PM PST - 24 comments

Let's talk about anarchism

I disagree with this deletion. I think the subject would have deserved a thread of its own, as it wasn't just another story about the movement, it was an interesting piece on its own right. [more inside]
posted by daniel_charms to Etiquette/Policy at 11:41 AM PST - 115 comments

What do favorites look like?

What does the slope of favorites look like for FPP or AskMe questions? [more inside]
posted by griphus to MetaFilter-Related at 9:12 AM PST - 42 comments

Here's to Previously Asked Questions

Looking at the old questions really does help so much. [more inside]
posted by jefficator to MetaFilter-Related at 8:52 AM PST - 53 comments

@ for one, @ for all

Can we have an @ button thingo pony so we can see when someone has replied to us, or quoted us, or SACRE BLEU, contradicted us on the green, grey and blue? You know what I mean, like twitter and Facebook has. Pretty please?
posted by taff to Feature Requests at 2:37 AM PST - 138 comments

December 1

It's the Most Quonsarful Time of The Year!

THNK U, QUONSAR!!!! [more inside]
posted by sonika to MetaFilter-Related at 2:11 PM PST - 272 comments

Outrageous Spontaneous Filings

An article on "professional online moderators" in Bloomberg Businessweek, including Jessamyn and the Metafilter Russian Incident. [more inside]
posted by Frank Grimes to MetaFilter-Related at 5:36 AM PST - 105 comments

mathowie interviews CmdrTaco

"I was a daily reader of Slashdot from about 1997 onwards, and it was a key inspiration for me starting MetaFilter." Matt Haughey interviewed Rob “CmdrTaco” Malda, Slashdot founder.
posted by hat_eater to MetaFilter-Related at 2:54 AM PST - 43 comments