MetaTalk posts tagged with contacts

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.

Contact Filters

ocherdraco — Mon, 17 Aug 2009 11:43:40 -0800

My little pony: On the contacts page, can we have links to filter contacts based on the XFN links we've applied to them? For example, I would find it very useful to be able to toggle my contacts to see only those whom I've met, or those whom I've espousenated. Likewise, it would be useful to filter people who've made me a contact to see who has applied what labels to me more easily.

He ain't Ralph.

St. Alia of the Bunnies — Tue, 16 Jun 2009 18:27:42 -0800

Someone to whom I am not married to has linked me in Contacts using the descriptor "Spouse." What recourse do I have? Maybe for certain categories (like spouse) we could require the person linked to agree??? I mean, my real-life husband is pretty easygoing but this is kinda....unacceptable. And fwiw I did use the contact form to email mods hours ago, so no one needs to suggest that.

Recommendations for MeFi Music Contacts

Effigy2000 — Tue, 28 Apr 2009 16:21:49 -0800

Whose activity should I be watching on Metafilter Music? I recently discovered the real power of sidebar contact activity; namely, being alerted when a talented MeFi musician posts a new song for all of us to enjoy. I'm currently tracking cortex, chococat, frenetic and Jofus, because I've found I love pretty much every song they release over there. But I'm sure that there's so many more contributors I should be adding as a contact so that I can experience their incredible tunes! I feel like I'm missing out by not having them as one of my contacts. So who else (that is a regular contributor to MeFi Music) should I be adding as a contact? Please recommend me some contacts for MeFi Music!

Will you please clarify linking etiquette?

cranberrymonger — Wed, 15 Apr 2009 20:45:45 -0800

Is it considered acceptable to link to users so I may see their activity? Most of the people I have links to are some MeFites I spoke with at a Toronto meetup. There are a couple others with whom I collaborated on threads that I think we both found interesting. However I've noticed other users because their posts frequently strike me as wise or funny or otherwise worthy of note. I've never interacted with some of them (IRL nor online). Is it okay to link under these circumstances? Thank-you, I appreciate that this part of the site exists as it's nice to run uncertainties past the group.

I can haz more contact activity?

special-k — Sun, 01 Mar 2009 14:21:35 -0800

Pony request: Can we have contact activity on the green? I'd love to keep track of all the amazing things my contacts are posting but I rarely spend time on the blue. Can we have the option of seeing contact activity (perhaps via a setting in preferences) on the green? The category sidebar could just appear below the contact activity bar.

I'm not Mom's favorite either

orthogonality — Thu, 13 Nov 2008 14:19:11 -0800

I musta pissed someone off... So yesterday, I notice that my "favorited by others" was 5515, which stuck in my head because, well, I thought, "that's five - five - not five - five, but it'll be all fives 40 favorites from now". And that I had (I think) 107 people linking to me as a contact. Today I made one of my usual ranting comments, and it quickly got 20 or so favorites, and I got a scattering of favorites for other desultory comments. So imagine my surprise when my "favorited by others" was only 5520, or net plus five, and my contacts from others at 106. Of course I'm not complaining that someone decided to unaward a favorite or remove a contact -- that's fine. But it would be nice if this activity could be summarized: "X people unfavorited Y comments of yours in the last Z hours". And on the contacts, it would be nice if that were announced too, if just to know who I pissed off, just like people who add me as a contact are announced on the sidebar.

Pony Request: Alumni as contact

Riverine — Sat, 30 Aug 2008 10:40:25 -0800

There is no classmate or co-alumni sort of option on the contact form. The recent Worst Colleges thread prompted me to make contacts of other Hampshire folk like myself. These are people I've never met, but with whom I share an institutional history. There is no classmate or co-alumni sort of option on the contact form. Can one be created, or do mods have suggestions on the most appropriate way to frame the contacting? Thanks.

Musings

Miko — Mon, 21 Jul 2008 18:24:32 -0800

"Muse" is romantic? I hadn't added a new contact in awhile, and didn't realize that "muse" had been categorized as "romantic." In the past, before there were quite so many choices, I always took it to mean that you considered the person to be like a classical Muse, in that their skills and graces inspired you. I feel kind of awkward now about some of my muses, for whom my feelings, though admiring, are decidedly Platonic. Why the change? Hope I'm not creeping people out, goin' around musin' them.

the new contacts page is leaving me wanting...

krautland — Thu, 22 May 2008 10:53:50 -0800

the new contacts page is leaving me wanting... even though I'm acquaintanted with myself and dare say I am developing a little crush on this cute guy I see in the mirror I just can't express that on my contacts page. I am fairly certain I've also met myself, though my memory is a little bit cloudy on that. matt? help? please? (I also can't ignore myself but that might have something to do with my size.)

Who are the people in your contacts list?

pb — Thu, 15 May 2008 08:50:50 -0800

We made a few changes to the contacts page. The contacts page has a few new features. The biggest change is that your list of contacts and the list of members who have you as a contact (we're calling contacted by) are now on two different tabs. Here's an example: mathowie's contacts, mathowie's contacted by. Also, within the contacts list you now have the option of viewing them two different ways: compact and full. You can switch views with the View link at the top right of the page. The compact (default) view is very similar to the old view, plus: - mutual contacts are highlighted - you can filter the page by relationship (click a relationship to filter to that type of contact) - you can filter by new contacts that added you in the last month (click show new at the top of the page) The full view adds everything from the compact plus: - profile photos from your contacts - quick links to edit/delete/mail people on mouseover of their icon - real name and location from their profile When you change views from full to compact (or vice versa), a cookie is set to remember your preference. The final change is the activity tab, which is essentially the same thing you see for your contacts' activity in Recent Activity. The difference is that this is now public, so you can check out mathowie's contacts' activity (minus filtering and who's adding who among his contacts). This is hot from the code factory so there are bound to be bugs. Please post them here as you find them, thanks!

Obscure bug found only because I'm realllllly bored at work

desjardins — Mon, 05 May 2008 17:38:16 -0800

The last five favorited posts from my contacts is borked. It shows that the last favorite was added over a year ago. But, for example, the contact shown (grumblebee), has favorited a bunch of stuff since then, including a post today.

Color coded usernames

stbalbach — Tue, 29 Apr 2008 07:58:30 -0800

I'm terrible at remembering names. It would be great to have usernames that are favorites show up as a different color. Is there a way?

Your ideas are intriguing to me and I wish to subscribe to your newsletter.

aihal — Sun, 20 Apr 2008 16:25:14 -0800

ContactPonyFilter: non-contact contacts? Paradoxical, I know, but I was wondering whether it'd be possible/advisable/popular/etc. to have an option to add people as a contact and designate them as simply 'someone whose posts/comments I always enjoy/agree with/find funny'. (Only pithier than that.) A way to favourite the person behind the posts, as it were. I realise that's not the definition of a 'contact', but in the same way I've added people as 'friends' on LiveJournal simply because I like the way they write and the things they write about, and I want to keep track of their future output. All the options as given are either real-world-specific or non-platonic and therefore creepy. (Pope Guilty probably wouldn't be impressed if I declared I had a crush on him, for example.) (This has sort of been discussed before, but I'm not suggesting a freeform box or a bitch-designator, just an extra option.) Am I trying to transfer community norms onto a community that doesn't share them? Am I wanting 'contacts' to fulfil a role it shouldn't (that of combined 'first contact', 'hey, your ideas are intriguing to me' and RSS-feed)? Is this already possible through some other feature and I'm just being a div? (I know there're individual RSS feeds for a user's posts and comments, but that doesn't have the functionality or the social component I'm after.) Am I just over-contemplating a serving of legumes?

Questions about the way Contact Activity Works.

Effigy2000 — Fri, 11 Apr 2008 21:17:08 -0800

I have some questions about contact activity. 1) I have the Anonymous AskMetafilter account as one of my contacts, but when a new Anon question is posted it dosen't show up in Contact Activity in the sidebar. Personally, I would like it to show up; the whole reason I made Anon as a contact is so I could be alerted to new Anon questions, which I always love reading. I understand that filtering Anon questions from contacts activity was done on purpose. Do the mods see this as being preferable? If so, why? Could it be changed? Would other MeFites like to see this changed? 2) Why is 12 favorites the magic number for when a post and/or comment appears in contact activity? I'm not advocating for a change here; I'm just curious is all. 3) Following on from #2, let's say for the sake of argument that a post and/or comment gets to 11 favorites and then it kind of just stalls and dosen't get any more favorites for a while. Then, a month or more later, it gets its twelfth favorite. Would it appear in contacts activity then, or not? What is the cut-off period for a post or comment attaining 12 favorites to appear in Contact Activity?

BIRTHDAY PONY?

[NOT HERMITOSIS-IST] — Mon, 07 Apr 2008 13:25:59 -0800

Birthday notification? Hey, it's my birthday!! No, it really is. And several mefites who I'm connected to on Facebook, etc. sent me messages of support as I turned a grotesque 29. I'd like to be able to do the same for them-- but I'm rarely logged in on any of those social networking sites. Wouldn't it be great if one of the profile information fields contained our birthdate (month and day, year optional)? Even if it wasn't necessarily made visible on our profiles, we could still enable an optional notification on the contacts sidebar: "Today is so-and-so's birthday." I know that making MetaFilter too networky rubs people the wrong way, but something small (and optional) like this would provide a modest new outlet for friendly interactions (something metafilter could use more of lately).

Asking for the removal of a feature.

dobbs — Sun, 06 Apr 2008 19:15:07 -0800

What's the point of "[Your Contact] just added [other member] as a contact."? Why should I care about that? I can understand highlighting the posts/fpps/best answers of my contacts but this just seems overkill. I'm casting my vote for removing this option. I know that most will just say "ignore it" but when a member gets really busy adding people (*cough* Jess every coupla days *cough*) all I get is a wall of "Such and such added such and such" and that's all that's on my highlight bar. Does anyone actually care who their contacts favorite? And... if so, why?

Contacts Favorites Bug?

juv3nal — Wed, 19 Mar 2008 00:03:57 -0800

Last Five Favorite posts from ___'s contacts & Last Five Favorite comments from ___'s contacts does not match up with Favorite posts from ___'s contacts & Favorite comments from ___'s contacts. I guess it's vaguely possible that this is because "Last" works on when something was favorited as opposed to when the favorited thing was posted, but the discrepancy is pretty large and I think there's a bug there.

Ponies are pointless but fun!

indienial — Tue, 12 Feb 2008 04:30:35 -0800

Pointless And Maybe Drunken Pony Request: Can you please change the boxes in the contact section which allows us to describe our relationship to the contact so they say whatever term we choose, like the gender one does? Cos someone I can only describe as my bitch has now joined MeFi, and I feel the need to make the relationship clear. I suspect I will live to regret asking this.

Contact is secret, is the moment when everything happens!

Item — Sat, 19 Jan 2008 18:57:14 -0800

When editing contact information, would it be possible for the edit to not show up in Contact Activity as a new contact? "x added y as a contact" when someone is already a contact is redundant and confusing, especially to my punchy brain.

Let me know about the Mefi Lovin'

Jimbob — Tue, 08 Jan 2008 04:46:54 -0800

This may be a stupid question; it may well have been discussed in the posts regarding the Metafilter messaging system, but they are legion and I am inebriated. But can we have a message sent to our inbox if someone adds us as a "contact"? Maybe this is already happening and it's just that no-one has befriended me lately. That may be because I'm an unrepentant arsehole. Maybe it's just the fact that I have received no mail at all since this feature was added. But I'd like to know if someone has taken the time to link to me. Also, the text on the "Post a Thread to Metatalk" page fails to mention H.R.H. Cortex esq. as a possible point of contact regarding personal and/or immediate problems. I'd hate to think the little fella was getting a raw deal...

Save Mr. Crashy Pants

emelenjr — Sun, 06 Jan 2008 06:26:07 -0800

Add as a contact may or may not be broken, but it crashes Safari. Logging in again using Firefox, I verified that the contact I wanted to add was added, but that was after Safari crashed on me. I pressed the "Add" button in Safari, it hung for a few seconds and then quit. (Safari 3, Mac OS X 10.4.11) Not a huge issue since adding the contact actually worked, but I had other tabs open in Safari that I needed to go back and open again.

Recent Activity RSS Feed?

bkudria — Mon, 31 Dec 2007 16:21:03 -0800

Would it be totally server-juice-draining to provide a user-specific Contacts' Recent Activity RSS feed?

RSS Feed for My Contacts Page

chrisamiller — Thu, 08 Nov 2007 14:17:35 -0800

How about an RSS feed for the Recent Activity From My Contacts page? It would make ~~stalking others~~ following my contacts a lot easier. Yes, okay, I'm my only contact at this point, but I might make friends eventually, right?

Contact List Formatting

brownpau — Wed, 07 Nov 2007 06:44:22 -0800

A quick formatting request for the contacts lists: "links to" and "linked by" as vertical lists side by side rather than as blocks of inline text. Also, a little icon to indicate mutual contacts, and a little plus sign to add new non-mutual contacts from the "linked by" list. I have the del.icio.us contacts list in mind.