AskMe moves too quickly

October 13, 2004 7:47 PM

I know that the duration of a question's stay on the AskMe front page has been discussed here before, but at the moment there have been 45 (give or take) questions asked today, and only the most recent 25 are displayed. Perhaps the front page should display at least all of a given days questions, even if they are more than 25?

Also, on the AskMe front page, anonymous questions are posted by anonymous, and on the archive pages they're posted by Anonymous Ask Metafilter.
posted by kenko to Feature Requests at 7:47 PM (21 comments total)

I like the "anonymous", as oppose to "Anonymous Ask Metafilter".
posted by geoff. at 7:50 PM on October 13, 2004

kenko read my mind, I was just about to post something along these lines. It's not so much the number of questions displayed on the front page that bothers me, as the fact that we lose the "new posts" feature once the question gets moved off the front page.
posted by biscotti at 8:25 PM on October 13, 2004

I think the front page should always show at least 50 questions.

People are asking an awful lot of questions tho. What's up with--oops ; >
posted by amberglow at 8:37 PM on October 13, 2004

Yeah, it really is becoming a flash-in-the-pan type experience. I know, I know, I know, I know: AskMe is still great, and to many of you, it is unassailable by any complaint, comments, criticism, or suggestion.

But, that said: I feel like it doesn't leverage the knowledge of the MeFi community. It leverages the 5% of the MeFi community who will see your question. I know the answer is out here more often than it actually gets contributed.

And, as always, categories are the only answer, and they're somewhere, somewhere, somewhere in the black box that is Matt's hopper.
posted by scarabic at 8:42 PM on October 13, 2004

I changed it to 45 from 25, fixed the copyright dates once and for all, and also fixed the number of new questions counter thingy on ask metafilter.

I also took a long look at the new posting page for ask metafilter, and started to wire it up.

The hardest part is building it so that both the new questions and old ones can be displayed concurrently, even though they're kind of done in different formats.
posted by mathowie (staff) at 1:15 AM on October 14, 2004

I don't often pop in with suggestions....but here....how about using the side bar principle to show 'the first lines' of a number of questions based on selectable filters.....most answered, least answered or an extension of the number showing on the front page....i.e. front shows 50, side bar shows first line (and number of comments) for the next 50....
posted by mattr at 2:57 AM on October 14, 2004

The problem is that by adding anonymous questions, you're significanly reducing the "time-up" of a thread. The average time-up was a couple of days before, now you could post a question at low-tide, then get flooded off the page when high-tide comes around a few hours later. That was a strange analogy.

I also think categories are the way to go, if it's in any way possible. That, or close off the anonymizer.
posted by Civil_Disobedient at 3:00 AM on October 14, 2004

Or limit to 3 anonymous ?s a day.
posted by Gyan at 3:30 AM on October 14, 2004

© 2000-2004

Yeah! That's right, mother fucker! I own all my own shit again so I can start to churn out some better material. Rub my pussy with that falafel, ass pirate!~
posted by The God Complex at 3:53 AM on October 14, 2004

Copyright got fixed?! Woot!
posted by Orange Goblin at 5:59 AM on October 14, 2004

Metafilter: Rub my pussy with that falafel, ass pirate!
posted by smcniven at 6:15 AM on October 14, 2004

fixed the copyright dates once and for all

This is a truly momentous day.
posted by reklaw at 7:14 AM on October 14, 2004

T-minus 79 days and counting till the bitching begins again.
posted by gleuschk at 8:23 AM on October 14, 2004

T-minus 79 days and counting till the bitching begins again.

Doubtful. I assume Matt simply set the last year of the copyright range to display the current year no matter what it is.

Thank you for the stable of ponies Father Matt.
posted by terrapin at 8:35 AM on October 14, 2004

I doubt the year is dynamic. Why add one more dynamic check to every page when it's only going to come in handy once a year?
posted by scarabic at 9:01 AM on October 14, 2004

Or limit to 3 anonymous ?s a day.

I think we'll see the flood subside after a few weeks. A lot of people have had questions all primed and ready to go in anticipation.

And this isn't the first time the main ask me page held less than a day. I had a question last less than 20 hours a couple of months back.
posted by Mitheral at 9:39 AM on October 14, 2004

Getting the year is computationally cheap, many times cheaper than getting the date/time of a single comment from the database. Or if he was really insane he could have set up a scheduled task running on new year's eve that modified the scripts directly.
posted by fvw at 10:40 AM on October 14, 2004

fvw, I just grab the server's now() and format it to spit out the year in four digits, on all three sections of the site. So it'll work forever.
posted by mathowie (staff) at 11:26 AM on October 14, 2004

Yup, that sounds incredibly sane. Not y10k safe though.
posted by fvw at 11:44 AM on October 14, 2004

I assume Matt simply set the last year of the copyright range to display the current year no matter what it is.

In that case, T-minus 34,728 days to go before bitch date. ;-)

(Microsoft products are not even y2k1 safe... try setting the date/time setter for 2100... NOPE!)
posted by shepd at 1:41 PM on October 14, 2004

it'll work forever

whew - seldon crisis averted
posted by scarabic at 6:10 PM on October 14, 2004