Double-post complaint December 5, 2000 5:12 PM Subscribe
I loath repeat posts as much as the next guy, but it seems a lot of them could be avoided if the original poster were more clear.
Last night, for instance, someone re-posted the swastika-tree story. People rightly pointed out that it had been posted before. But look at the original post: "I bet this slice of German history has put the local Greens in quite a dilemma." And that's it. Unless you follwed the link, you'd have no idea what it was about.
Here's another example: "YASL: Yet another Salon link. This could be the smoking gun. Or just smoke. Judgement?" This describes just about every Salon story, and I would not blame anyone for inadvertantly re-posting.
We should expect posters to be familiar with what's been posted lately. However, it's too much to demand that people click through every link. Let's be clear and complete (but not too complete, of course) and leave the riddles, enigmas and teasers on our own weblogs.
Last night, for instance, someone re-posted the swastika-tree story. People rightly pointed out that it had been posted before. But look at the original post: "I bet this slice of German history has put the local Greens in quite a dilemma." And that's it. Unless you follwed the link, you'd have no idea what it was about.
Here's another example: "YASL: Yet another Salon link. This could be the smoking gun. Or just smoke. Judgement?" This describes just about every Salon story, and I would not blame anyone for inadvertantly re-posting.
We should expect posters to be familiar with what's been posted lately. However, it's too much to demand that people click through every link. Let's be clear and complete (but not too complete, of course) and leave the riddles, enigmas and teasers on our own weblogs.
that would be a nice feature, matt. you might also include "the most recent appearance was in a (post|comment) on (date)" -- if it's been 3 or 4 months, or was deep in a thread, then a repost is not such a big deal. some people don't use the URL field in the post form tho -- would you be able to run searches on all URLs found in a post?
posted by sudama at 6:43 PM on December 5, 2000
posted by sudama at 6:43 PM on December 5, 2000
would you be able to run searches on all URLs found in a post?
it would require some scraping for "http://" but could be possible. The first step would be to search the URL column.
posted by mathowie (staff) at 6:57 PM on December 5, 2000
it would require some scraping for "http://" but could be possible. The first step would be to search the URL column.
posted by mathowie (staff) at 6:57 PM on December 5, 2000
well, what i usually do to prevent double posts (in all the, uh, 3 posts i've done on mefi :) is just search for the URL i'm linking in the normal search. since it seems to just do a plain text match, URLs match just like words. but that's just me.
posted by pnevares at 3:05 PM on December 6, 2000
posted by pnevares at 3:05 PM on December 6, 2000
This MetaTalk post
Concerns DoublePostGuy lots.
Just thought you should know.
posted by DoublePostGuy at 5:15 PM on December 6, 2000
Concerns DoublePostGuy lots.
Just thought you should know.
posted by DoublePostGuy at 5:15 PM on December 6, 2000
You are not logged in, either login or create an account to post comments
that might cut down a bit on the repeats, but getting everyone to change the way they write links may prove more difficult.
posted by mathowie (staff) at 5:18 PM on December 5, 2000