MetaTalk posts tagged with AskMeFi and askme

Frederick Jaffe's son shows up to answer a question

michaelh — Fri, 05 Apr 2013 15:11:49 -0800

The answers in my old question about a Planned Parenthood were all perfectly good, but I got the best answer and some new documents in a MeMail from now mefite Dave Jaffe, son of the memo author Frederick Jaffe. Here's what he sent me (posted with his permission):

The information you received is accurate: Frederick Jaffe was merely summarizing various population control proposals from other people. In his original memo he included footnotes attributing the proposals to several sources but these attributions were inexplicably left out when it was published in the Family Planning Perspectives article. I have located the original memo (in the Rockefeller Archives) and posted it at: https://docs.google.com/folder/d/0B0KCqtNShmxgUUZqdUFla0h6Qnc/edit

I thought this was too awesome and useful of a development to keep to myself.

Also, if someone knows an RSS reader with which to read the answers...

michaelh — Mon, 18 Mar 2013 00:48:06 -0800

Did my AskMe query about advantageous reading in one's line of work set the record high ratio of question favorites to number of answers? More importantly, can anyone add to it? I certainly like the publications that were suggested. It's just that there are so many lines of work that were not represented.

ask.mefi questions about getting clients

SampleSize — Wed, 22 Aug 2012 15:30:04 -0800

There must already be Ask questions about how to increase business/get more clients as a freelancer, but I'm not hitting the right search terms or something. Can anyone point me? Thanks!

The Popular Tags cloud on ask.me just doesn't

Tomorrowful — Sat, 12 May 2012 17:24:12 -0800

Not Actually Extremely Problematic: The "popular tags" page on the green is a tag cloud, but none of the tags appear much larger than the others. This is what I'm talking about. Maybe it's just me, but instead of being able to tell at a glance that some tags are just more common than others, the difference between the biggest (ie, most common) tags and the smallest ones just isn't visually obvious. It actually looks more like a list with really sloppy formatting than an actual tag cloud. The size range is from 20 to 30 points; 50% is a big jump in theory, but when it's all run together, It doesn't really impart "This is more common than that" in an obvious intuitive kind of way. Contrast with the tag cloud for the blue, where the range is from 15 to 30, which helps make the size differential a little clearer. (And, okay, yes, on the How Important is this Really scale, this falls just north of "Obscure bug affecting Internet Explorer for Macintosh," but it's bothering me, okay?)

Why are Popular Favorites scrambled?

Daddy-O — Thu, 14 Apr 2011 10:19:58 -0800

I don't usually have time to read all of the questions on AskMeFi, so I rely on the Popular Favorites (24 hours) tab to screen the submitted questions for those found most interesting by other MeFites. The problem is that because of the way they are sorted I sometimes miss some.
Would it be possible to sort them chronologically by the time and date of submission, the most recent being at the top of the list? That way I could scroll down the list until I get to the question I remember from my last browsing session. What do others think? Thanks!

Spies from the future

XMLicious — Thu, 17 Feb 2011 19:48:01 -0800

I think that there ought to be a caveat somewhere about AskMe questions, pseudonymity, privacy, and social network scraping tools. For years, the possibilities of social network scraping tools have weighed heavily on my paranoid reclusive internet guy mind. Now that we have some proof that these sorts of things are actively being developed¹ (see the thread here, good Ars Technica summary here, discussion of someone who would be really good at doing this here) it seems like we ought to have a note somewhere that essentially says

If you are going to be posting any sensitive personal details such as financial information or anything intimate or embarrassing about yourself or anyone else such as a roommate, family member, or friend, remember that the security and privacy of such information depends not only upon your real identity remaining a secret now, in the present, but also continuing to be secret in the future. Small details in any post or comment you write, even years from now, can connect your MetaFilter account to other online accounts and eventually to your real identity, possibly as a result of an automated analysis carried out by a software tool... (blah, blah, quick explanation of the concept of a social network scraping tool that is simultaneously doing searches in tax records and other databases)

My primary concern here isn't so much the welfare of the AskMe posters themselves, since you kinda have to be in charge of your own privacy on the internet (in fact it should be driven home that mathowie & co. are in no way responsible for maintaining anyone's privacy or pseudonymity beyond maybe protecting credit card transactions and server logs, the reasonable stuff a site privacy policy would cover) but because AskMe posters often include lots of sensitive information about other people, family members or roommates who would also be compromised if the AskMe poster's real identity were uncovered. So I think that we should have a note like the above either when you go to post an AskMe or maybe just in the FAQ. (Or perhaps a compromise, a FAQ note that is linked to prominently when you go to post.) Sorta previously, sorta previously, sorta previously, related. 1. See? See? I was right all along! JUST BECAUSE I'M PARANOID DOESN'T MEAN THAT THEY AREN'T OUT TO GET ME!!!1eleven!!

The Peanut Gallery

tehloki — Sat, 27 Nov 2010 14:14:00 -0800

I was just wondering... How many of you guys browse askmefi primarily as a source of entertainment, rather than as a potential answerer? I kind of feel guilty about it (not sure why, maybe getting entertainment from other people's plight is kind of exploitative, in an abstract way), and the knowledge that I was not alone would reassure me that I am not awful for doing this.

Please Hope Me Not Fail at Life

l33tpolicywonk — Sun, 15 Aug 2010 10:49:40 -0800

I've been really enjoying "lifehack"-type AskMe posts lately - questions about how to change one's own habits to be better at day-to-day life situations and challenges (How do I become one of those people who makes everyone they talk to feel great? from Chrysalis is a good new one). What are some of your favorites? Bonus points for questions about how to simplify or about being more considerate towards other people, in ways big and small.

Who asks the most interesting questions?

marsha56 — Wed, 28 Jul 2010 22:03:36 -0800

InfoDump Analysis Request. Who asks the most interesting questions in AskMe? Given: 1) Users broken down into three groups: a) Low askers - Users who have asked less than 10 questions (but obviously at least one). b) High askers - Users who have asked more than 100 questions and c) Medium askers - Users who have asked at least 10 questions but no more than 100 questions. 2) Ratio of number of all of the favorites that have been received by all of a user's AskMe questions (questions only, not answers) divided by the number of questions they have asked. What I'd really like to see is: a list of 10 users in each group with highest favs to question ratio with user name, number of favorites, and number of questions. Also, could you link their username to their profile, so I can then just go over and look at their questions. I know I could/should learn to do this myself, but I was hoping someone else would take a stab at it to satisfy my curiosity? No research papers or post-doctoral thesis involved here. No timeline/deadline at all. I was just looking at lists of AskMe questions for a couple of users today and thought "Gee, they really ask interesting questions. I wonder who else asks interesting questions?" If you think 10 and 100 are not the best parameters for breaking down high/medium/low askers, use your best judgment. Same if you think 10 in each group is too many or too few, you decide. These numbers are just suggestions. You're the query god, you get to decide what makes the most sense.

I've got some questions...

deacon_blues — Thu, 15 Apr 2010 10:16:11 -0800

FeatureRequest: AskMeFi question queue? So I'm about forty five minutes away from being able to ask a question, and it got me thinking: I have questions I want to ask and sometimes forget/don't have to allotment to do so. I'm totally down with the seven day filter bit but is there any possibility of being able to type out our questions, have them all ready to go, and queue them in such a way that when we are able to post questions again we can just go ahead and press "post" without having to do the writeup for the question?

Best Weight Loss-, Diet- and Fitness-Related Ask Metafilter Threads?

WCityMike — Mon, 08 Feb 2010 15:14:58 -0800

What Ask Metafilter threads do Mefites think are the best-of for weight loss, diet and exercise? There doesn't appear to be a "DietMe" collection page on the MeFi Wiki (EatMe is really more cooking-oriented; tangential, but not on point), and there is too much of an abundance of relevant links to dive in blind. What are the best weight/diet/exercise posts and comments?

Advice for a College Freshman

biochemist — Thu, 30 Jul 2009 18:03:16 -0800

Can someone help me find the Ask MeFi post where someone asked for general advice for a college freshman? I searched all over and couldn't locate it.

Read before answering, please!

youcancallmeal — Sat, 27 Sep 2008 20:16:58 -0800

Do people's just not read through the questions on AskMefi before leaving answers? I've seen this happen a lot in the past and the most egregious examples lately (that made me post this) are porposie's ans wers to this question. I mean, come on. Right there in the question, it says "no chunks" and "no booze". I didn't just flag this because I don't think it would actually get deleted since it's generally on topic, it just doesn't help the OP out at all.

How anonymous is an anonymous question on AskMe?

sjvilla79 — Thu, 09 Mar 2006 20:38:50 -0800

How anonymous is an anonymous question on AskMe?

Please keep your politics out of Ask Metafilter questions

smackfu — Fri, 02 Sep 2005 10:08:41 -0800

"Criminal incompetence is probably not an impeachable offense, but something has to be done about Bush." Please keep your politics out of Ask Metafilter questions. (And another.) It tends to attract the wrong kind of answers.

Best response?

Keyser Soze — Sun, 06 Jun 2004 16:19:27 -0800

Does this belong in the top 25 best responses in Askme?