MetaTalk posts tagged with comments

Infodump updates: contact dates, comment length, metatalk closures, munging

cortex — Mon, 14 Dec 2009 07:20:09 -0800

Infodump update: we've added a few new features. New since the August relaunch: 1. Comment length files. For folks interested in analyzing how the general size of a comment correlates to other aspects of site activity, you can now work with number-of-characters information about each comment on mefi, askme, meta and music. These are stored in new files separate from the existing commentdata files. 2. Metatalk thread closure information. We've had a "deleted" column in the postdata files previously, listing a 0 for undeleted and 1 for deleted threads, but now that column in the metatalk file can also have a value of 2 for closed threads and 3 for (rare) threads that are both closed and deleted. 3. Contact creation dates. If you're interested in looking at networking activity over time, you can now explicitly examine contact info in that light. Some of this info is approximate, since we didn't originally track creation date in that table. Details are on the wiki. 4. ID munging. On request from one user back in August, there's now an ID-munging function built into the Infodump scripts, which, for any user who specifically requests to be on the munge list, swaps out their actual userid for a unique 7-digit fake id throughout the dump. It's a very low hurdle to identification, but it's there, for whatever that's worth. Folks doing any analysis that makes assumptions about userids themselves as meaningful values should be aware of and account for this in setting up their analyses. My to-do list is now completely clear. If folks have other Infodump additions they'd like to see in the future, let me know. Also, there's been some interesting graphs coming out of this post-November thread, in case you're interested in datawankery but missed it somehow.

Search Through User's Activity?

MikeHarris — Fri, 04 Dec 2009 14:18:01 -0800

Would it be possible to have a search box on Activity subpages -- in other words, a search function that limits itself to a single user's comments or posts? I think this'd be a useful tool because, as one example, a lot of people may remember threads by virtue of author and comments -- "oh, this thread I half-remember, that was where Joe said 'flippy'" -- and being able to comment search would be useful to allow users to themselves coax partial memories out themselves without MeTa or admin assistance. I do see how it could be abused for stalkerish purposes, but we've not let that get in the way of implementing other existing conveniences such as per-user RSS post feeds, Google Earth KMZ links in profiles, and so on.

Ui and feature request for Recent Activity page

Brandon Blatcher — Wed, 14 Oct 2009 11:18:25 -0800

Here's a couple of requests concerning the Recent Activity page and one for errors when previewing. 1. Currently the ability to mange posts removed from Recent Activity is hidden at the bottom of the page. Can we move that link to the top, as in this mock up? 2. If a user makes a comment in a post that they have removed from Recent Activity, can that post automatically be placed back on the Recent Activity page? 3. On preview: I forgot to select a category for this post and was confused about why I wasn't getting a "Post" button. After looking around for a few seconds, I saw the error, which hidden within the page. So could we make that error message more noticeable? Here's the original and here's a revamp.

Recent Activity Comm...

Memo — Tue, 06 Oct 2009 20:06:29 -0800

Very Little Pony request: There seems to be a character limit for comments in Recent Activity, showing '...' when a comment gets cut. Any chance of making the cut more noticeable? Maybe with a [...]? Example (if you've posted in that thread, of course)

Why the sudden rash of "honey"s?

obliquicity — Mon, 28 Sep 2009 22:33:49 -0800

Is it me, or has MeFi been infected with "honey" recently? It seems as though in the past week or so, every thread I go into has someone referring to another poster as "honey" or "hon" -- a term that I find startlingly condescending (with overtones of ageism and sexism, to boot). I'd assume that the people saying it mean it to come across that way, except that their comments otherwise seem likely to be genuinely caring/trying to be helpful. Is this just the painful extension of a general cultural tendency to pretend we live in the 1950s again? To be completely clear, to offer someone advice and then append that advice with the endearment "hon," is to suggest that you are oh-so-much-older-and-wiser than they are, and that they will, one day, realize how sweetly naïve they were for not realizing all along the wisdom of the pearls you just shared. Plus, you don't know them (unless of course you do, I suppose) -- so why are terms of endearment even appropriate at all? None of the posts or comments to which these comments are responding ask for demonstrations of maternal affection. If I'm the only one interpreting this word this way, then I will of course tuck my sweet li'l tail between my legs and go home.

Do we have a minute to spare?

blasdelf — Sat, 26 Sep 2009 15:57:05 -0800

Lukas Mathis is asking people to 'rate the quality of some comments from popular websites'

The majority of them are from recent metafilter threads — I've only seen a bit of youtubery.

20,000 and still counting...

goodnewsfortheinsane — Tue, 15 Sep 2009 10:39:35 -0800

delmoi has posted 20,000 comments to Metafilter. (Previously)

Search results including number of comments?

oulipian — Sun, 13 Sep 2009 07:32:46 -0800

A minor pony: on the search results page, can the number of comments for each post be included in the "posted by" line, the same way it is on the main page? When searching MeFi, I am usually most interested in finding threads with lots of comments. This is particularly true when searching AskMe, where having a large number of comments is usually a pretty good indication that a thread contains lots of quality suggestions, or has at least provoked an interesting discussion.

Opera Mini and MeFi: Two Great Tastes That Taste Assy Together

middleclasstool — Wed, 09 Sep 2009 10:13:50 -0800

Can't comment from Opera Mini on a Blackberry. I've tried a couple of times to post comments to the blue from two different models of Blackberry (8700 and 8900). Previously was running an older version of Opera Mini (can't recall which) on an old Blackberry 8700, and when I'd try to post a comment to the blue, it would preview just fine, but when I hit the post button it would load the preview page again. Repeated hitting of the post button just continues to preview. Currently running Opera Mini 4.2.14912 on my new 8900, tried to comment in the Dreamcast thread this morning while waiting at the doctor's office, and got the same problem. I haven't tried yet posting to other subsites, and of course I don't want to make an FPP just to test if that functions properly in OM. Anyone else seen this?

greasemonkey scripts that try to track deleted comments?

peter_meta_kbd — Mon, 07 Sep 2009 21:27:30 -0800

The faq says there are greasemonkey scripts that try to track deleted comments. Is there anything working? I couldn't find anything following the link. The deletions here are so regular it's like using the internet from China.

@please @make @it @stop!

Antidisestablishmentarianist — Thu, 03 Sep 2009 08:14:11 -0800

A reminder: @newpeople, using @username as a form of reply is discouraged on @MetaFilter. This isn't @twitter. You are more than free to do it, but know that about 3/4 of the people that read what you wrote are not impressed. In the least. We have a few conventions here, and not using @ to reply to someone is one of them. Try instead: > username: username: That isn't so hard, is it? Posting because this behavior has ramped up the last few months, and this needs restating.

Why I Read Metafilter

foxy_hedgehog — Thu, 27 Aug 2009 16:28:30 -0800

In the discussion on this heartwrenching FPP, paulsc stepped up with a unique perspective on the post and talked about what it's like to care for a family member with schizophrenia. His comments were what I think of as the perfect Mefi comment cocktail: a vivid personal account combined with an insightful elucidation and exploration of the issue at hand -- in this case, the technicalities and economics of trying to manage a loved one's unmanageable illness. I don't know how many people are following the thread, but I highly recommend taking a look. I don't know how to link to comments in threads directly, but you can find them through his user page. If anyone knows that little coding trick, I'd be grateful if you could link them here.

Please keep track of which comments are new.

floam — Sun, 26 Jul 2009 18:24:05 -0800

Feature request: Keep track of which comments are new to a post since I last read it. I just gave up trying to implement this myself with greasemonkey and local storage options present in some of the newer fangled browsers. Having failed utterly, I'd really like it if there was some little horizontal rule inserted after the previously newest comment or something letting me know at which point in the list of comments ones that are new since my last visit are. I waste a lot of time sort of scrolling down, reading parts of ones that look new, scrolling up, until I find one I recognize so I can start following down from that comment again. I often don't like to miss comments. Does this seem feasible? Or is there some work around that can get me this? One idea I came up with that would not contribute to the comment quality at metafilter is to require myself that I leave some stupid comment every time I read and come back to a post, so that I can easily go through my activity and find where I was last. I sincerely apologize if this has been brought up before or if there's a known easy way to do this. I searched hard, I think.

MeFi meme index?

spitefulcrow — Wed, 15 Jul 2009 11:39:46 -0800

Is there an index of MeFi memes? I'm pretty new here (so new I'm not sure whether this should go in MeTa or AskMe), but there are a lot of memes I don't quite understand. Has anyone ever created a list of the more popular MeFi memes with explanations and possible origins? I'd love to see one.

Sorting search results by number of favorites?

Rhaomi — Mon, 06 Jul 2009 17:05:19 -0800

Pony request: We can already sort the posts and comments in search results by date or by relevance. Would it be possible (or even desirable) to sort by the number of favorites each item has? A lot of people bristle when favorites or best answers or user numbers are suggested as a way to judge the value of things on the site. Thinking in those terms makes it too easy to reduce healthy community interaction into a numbers game. I generally agree with this. It would be a bad idea to filter or rank a comment thread by the number of favorites, for instance, because it would obstruct the flow of the conversation and encourage people to try to compete to make the top of the list. Likewise, showing how many best answers a user has is iffy because it might make the assignment of best answers more acrimonious. But the effects that such number-crunching has on the community is less pronounced in search, because the thing being ranked is a unique collection of disparate, mostly archived content being viewed by one person looking for something specific -- not an ongoing discussion in one place viewable to everybody. In fact, emphasizing favorites in search would be useful, since they often mark the content deemed by the community to be the most significant, insightful, clever, or helpful. They'd really help in searching AskMe, for example, by highlighting best answers as chosen by the community in cases where the asker didn't choose one. It would also return the questions that generated the best responses (like the super-helpful or Big Idea questions that typically make the podcast). And it would help in searching FPPs by identifying high-quality posts that impressed the most people. As an example of this in action, consider someone interested in learning more about Abercrombie & Fitch. Sorting by date isn't very useful for this kind of browsing, as the results would constantly change over time. And sorting by "relevance" frankly doesn't give very relevant results. But if there was an option to sort by favorites, the top result would likely be this stellar comment giving a revealing insider's look at the company. It was all about Abercrombie, received 150+ favorites, and made the sidebar, but when a search for "abercrombie" is sorted by relevance it is buried on page 17. Another example: Astro Zombie's amazing Pixar story. One of the most favorited comments ever, certainly one of the best Pixar-related ones, but it doesn't show up on the first few pages of a relevancy search for the company. I'm sure there are plenty of other cases where sorting by favorite count would pull up excellent content that a relevance search ignores. I, for one, would be fascinated in seeing the most popular comments on random topics (Red Sox, Apollo 11, Australia...) So, thoughts? Would this work as a sorting option?

Anecdotes

archagon — Sat, 27 Jun 2009 00:54:03 -0800

I love reading personal anecdotes on MeFi and AskMeFi. Could you link me to your favorite anecdotal comments and threads? Thank you! This thread is good, but not quite what I'm looking for.

Safari update doesn't have bold/italics/link shortcut

bonobothegreat — Mon, 08 Jun 2009 20:14:53 -0800

Has anybody updated Safari today and noticed that the shortcuts to italicize, bold and link text are missing below the comment box? I'm logged in, I think java is working and I'm stumped.

If you don't have anything nice to say....

msalt — Sun, 07 Jun 2009 12:52:12 -0800

Is it inappropriate to comment that you're unimpressed with a post? In the comments to this post -- a single link to a Bobby McFerrin performance that's been there on YouTube for 3 years, with no context -- Benzo8 said: MeFi has become too big, I fear, such that every thread will find people coming into it to loudly and ironically complain just how little they care about the subject matter. This was OK when were a few thousand, or even a few tens of thousands - it was mild background noise that others could steer to better the discussion of the link. Now it's a groundswell - the naysayers begin to overwhelm any semblance of conversation those who might be interested in the link care about... It's time people realised that MeFi is too big to behave that way - it's changed and you have to change or it will die. If you don't care, show us how much you don't care by ignoring it. The strength of MetaFilter is that it offers a place for discussion of a wide range of subjects - with 50-60k users, there's always going to be thousands who don't care for one particular subject or another. Be restrained, move on, don't kill the 'Fi... Discuss.

help me post comments

dhruva — Mon, 18 May 2009 09:33:31 -0800

I can't post comments to *.metafilter.com I'm having trouble posting comments to Metafilter sites. I'm on a Mac OS X 10.4 PPC, and whenever I try to post comments I either get a timeout, or a error saying the server dropped connection or just a blank page. Happens in firefox, camino and safari. The odd thing is that I can post just fine from the University network (same machine), and odder still is that it happens only on Metafilter. No other sites give me a problem. I haven't changed the network, or any settings at home, and the only other clue is that it started to happen after the great server meltdown. How can I fix this? or alternatively, what could be the problem so I can atleast know what to google for? Thanks!

Clickable Comments in AskMe Search

deadcrow — Fri, 01 May 2009 10:22:42 -0800

I am missing something? When I search for something in AskMe, I sometimes see a comment (under the comments tab), or an excerpt from a comment, that I might want to explore by, say, clicking on said comment and viewing the entire post. Is there a simple way to do this? Am I missing an obvious link to the comment(s) in context? (Also, suggestions on asking about this without saying "comment" so many times are appreciated)

DrossFilter - brute force thread cleanser

hifimofo — Thu, 23 Apr 2009 19:09:21 -0800

As a bit of a brain saver I've made a GreaseMonkey script that hides every comment in a discussion on mefi that has less than 5 favourites. It was the anencephalic baby thread that drove me to it. I was thinking about writing a snark filter, but, you know, natural language parsing and all that, so I decided to make it simple and dumb. And it works. Only quality snark makes it through. And if you ever find yourself thinking "I can't believe I just spent thirty minutes reading 180 comments about W, which was mainly X, Y and Z bitching", you might also find it handy. Naturally, if you wish to fully participate in a thread you will have to turn the script off. Here is the script. It is based on someone else's script that highlighted favourited comments. Future developments I will never get around to implementing:

Scale the cut-off point to the length of the thread
Add a show all comments button

Nesting posts

carsonb — Fri, 17 Apr 2009 17:15:09 -0800

Posts within posts? I was doing a little digging around the MeFi archives today and found a great post on pre-cinema devices from madamjujujive. A few comments into the post snez drops in all disappointed, saying he'd been working on a pre-cinema post himself. He then goes ahead and contributes everything he'd been working on, effectively making a post within a post. I've definitely seen this type of thing before, though I can't think of any other examples off the top of my head and can't imagine how to find more on my own. So I'm asking, Do you know of other similar occurences?

Way too lazy to scroll.

grapefruitmoon — Thu, 09 Apr 2009 13:40:47 -0800

Pony For Wicked Lazy People Request: Can we get a button to go immediately to the "post comment" area on our recent threads? Yeah, I know, scrolling down to the bottom of the page after going to your recent comment is SO HARD. But it IS!

Comments RSS?

DJWeezy — Wed, 04 Mar 2009 13:41:32 -0800

Comments RSS? I haven't been able to find it, is there a rss feed for a specific users comments across all sites?