MetaTalk

Would it be possible to add a feature to the new post form that checks for URLs while the user is writing the post, and instantly notifies the user that the post is potentially a double without having to hit Preview? It can be a bummer when you've written a long FPP and then discover it's a double on preview. Site search/domain-specific Google search is kind of unreliable for this in my experience. Or, could we have access to the URL-checking system with a user input field somewhere else in the site?
posted by overeducated_alligator on Mar 22, 2016 - 34 comments

So I posted a double of the awesome wedding dance, and now I have a pony request that might be useful. [more inside]
posted by nevercalm on Jul 24, 2009 - 36 comments

Mefi search functionality and double posts. Using google extensively I've developed the habit of searching for phrases by using speech marks in order to retrieve more specific results. Metafilter search doesn't seem to support this feature, and partly as a result I made a double post, after searching for "moon trees" instead of moon trees. I'll know for next time, but could more double posts result from other new users with the same habit? Possibly.
posted by nthdegx on Nov 21, 2002 - 24 comments

This dangling baby . . . it vibrates? Every time Matt kills a "Jacko's dangling baby" post, another pops up to replace it. We've talked about this before, but I think the (general) question needs to be raised: What, if anything, can be done to prevent reposting deleted stories? It's been pointed out that posters may not know that they're posting something that has been deleted before because, um, it's been deleted before! (And with wacky news like this, there can be any number of sources for the same story, sorry.) Short of deleting the story every time it pops up, is there a better solution?
posted by mcwetboy on Nov 20, 2002 - 75 comments

I noticed this thread (lofi link--in case it doesn't last) earlier and noticed that the poster, BarneyFifesBullet, mentioned that he'd searched for the topic and hadn't found it. A cursory search, however, turned up that it had, in fact, been posted a few months earlier. Long story short, I noticed that the default setting when you use the search function on MeFi sets the drop-down menu to "in the past month" which seems like it could be the culprit in a case like this where the poster seems to have searched unsuccessfully for a previously-posted link. It doesn't seem like something that would be frightfully hard to chance, and it might save us a few double posts...
posted by The God Complex on Sep 16, 2002 - 22 comments

Minor detail: going to user.mefi/[number] you get links to a user's MeTa threads and comments - very useful - but going to username.mefi/[name] you don't.
posted by rory on Nov 1, 2001 - 3 comments

Wow. Three double-posts in a row. Nothing new in and of itself, but this makes me wonder if MetaFilter could implement a FilePile type icon based system for marking double posts. (Inside: I will try and explain myself)
posted by thewittyname on Oct 12, 2001 - 14 comments

Been there/Done that:

A button so that if a significant number of readers mark a post as a duplicate or just really boring, etc. then your preferences filter it out. So if someone were to post AYBABTU again, annoyed readers would mark it, and those who came later wouldn't see it unless they turned off their filter.
posted by mecran01 on Jul 24, 2001 - 11 comments

I'd like it if, when you're previewing a topic you're about to post, metafilter says something like:

The URL you are about to post was found in 1 other post(s).

lorem ipsum sit amet..
Go to the detail view for this result

please check the thread(s) above to make sure you're not duplicating a previous post.


posted by muta on May 16, 2000 - 3 comments