"follow-up icon"

December 28, 2005 7:08 AM

random request: there should be something like a clickable "follow-up icon" that connects old original threads with eventual follow-ups
posted by suni to Feature Requests at 7:08 AM (11 comments total)

Do you mean something along the lines of: "This thread has been linked to in the following Metafilter threads ... MetaTalk threads ... Ask Metafilter threads ...."?
posted by caddis at 7:12 AM on December 28, 2005

I suggested something similar back in June 2004.
posted by mcwetboy at 7:34 AM on December 28, 2005

I've always secretly wanted this
posted by cyphill at 7:57 AM on December 28, 2005

Like an in-site trackback.
posted by scarabic at 8:35 AM on December 28, 2005

it should be a little menu or link or symbol or the textlink "Follow-Up:" in front of the thread title so you could identify it as something with a background story

mefites should be able to tie their own threads together (in a linear timeline or as a group), so that easy follow-ups (and also regular reports that build upon each other would be possible) would be possible and everybody could easily read all earlier threads
posted by suni at 8:58 AM on December 28, 2005

mefites should be able to tie their own threads together

i was banned once for using the quonsar tag in that manner. plus, i really wanted to see just how big the quonsar tag would appear in the "cloud". heh.
posted by quonsar at 10:15 AM on December 28, 2005

mefites should be able to tie their own threads together (in a linear timeline or as a group), so that easy follow-ups (and also regular reports that build upon each other would be possible) would be possible and everybody could easily read all earlier threads

What's wrong with what people do now, which is add a link in a post that says something like (previously on MeFi)?

If you're still keen on some automated system, please provide an example of what you envision in use somewhere else. Are there other sites that show you previous orders/creations/posts in a manner that allows for easy retreival while you're trying to do something new on a form? I'm not sure I'm understanding exactly what you are describing, because I've never seen anything like it nor do I know how I would go about building it.
posted by mathowie (staff) at 1:29 PM on December 28, 2005

Matt, I think a little box (or whatever, you are good at design) down at the bottom of the page which listed "Other Metafilter threads which link to this thread" would do. You could break it down by area, blue, grey and green, if you liked. It would be mildly interesting, but would the coding effort be worth it?
posted by caddis at 2:51 PM on December 28, 2005

what would be in the little box? A list of every post you've ever made, and you click on one to add it to the current post?
posted by mathowie (staff) at 3:42 PM on December 28, 2005

i'll come up with a more complete concept tomorrow : )
posted by suni at 6:24 PM on December 28, 2005

it's the same problem that exists with newspapers and tv news, after the big story you often miss the small second part
1) it would be nice to be able to see that something is a follow-up (cos i like follow-ups)
2) it would be nice to be able to reach the older thread easily and reliable from the new one (without having to look for "previously.." or "..in this thread")

when posting there should be a menu that lists all threads you ever made, just a list from newest to oldest threadnumber and title
when choosing one (or 2 or 3 threads) a little icon or color dot or text would be placed in front of the thread
"Follow-up:" or "[Follow-up]" linking to the older thread would be nice (link title should be the title of the older thread)
a popup menu that lists the older threads by title and date and allows to click on each would be nicer

there's a chance that people would abuse or misuse it for fun and status, but i also see that the site would gain from this
posted by suni at 11:19 AM on December 29, 2005