What is MetaFilter? (No, this isn't some crappy philosophical question.) [more inside]
posted by fogster on Mar 2, 2008 - 104 comments

Occasionally links without any real description are posted to the front page. It would be nice if any user could add a short description that would appear when you moused over the link, so users don't have to click on eight different links to find out what a post is about. [more inside]
posted by craniac on Sep 26, 2007 - 55 comments

A thread in which someone who browses AskMe via RSS, annoyed by people's tendency to post inadequately descriptive "Headline/Title"s, but aware that this has been discussed before, illustrates his displeasure by composing alternative questions to fit some recent titles, in an attempt to encourage others to submit titles that better describe their questions.
posted by staggernation on Feb 14, 2007 - 19 comments

One. Word. FPPs. (ok, so the last is more than one word) I don't know about you, but sometimes I'm stuck on a slow connection. Dial-up slow. I have to carefully select which links I click, and I don't want to waste my time on links that don't interest me. I screen my choices based on the info provided by the FPP itself, and link location is only mildly helpful (except for newsfilter). Can't we please get a consensus for making the FPPs informative enough to judge interest? (other uninformative posts today alone...)
posted by mystyk on Sep 28, 2005 - 76 comments

Is there a taxonomy for mifi posts? Specifically, posts like this and posts like this are inherently different in how they are made.

The first one describes the post with links, and the second describes links in the post. Am I stupid for even thinking about this?
posted by bigmusic on Sep 26, 2005 - 17 comments

You are posting a link without a description, or a description without a link, please correct this The links are included, with brackets and tags, in the description as usual since I joined 2-ish years ago. What are we fishing for here?

You forgot to include a title, please correct this Did no such thing, included the text string "poo969" in the Link title: field. What are we fishing for here? Have we been studying bondage-and-discipline languages with Bucky Wirth? Just askin'.

PS, Search Metatalk "please correct this" Nothing was found with that search criteria, try searching again.
posted by jfuller on Jan 11, 2003 - 12 comments

Descriptive posting.

Perhaps this is just me, but I find posts crop up fairly frequently on metafilter with little or no indication within the post of what the linked site actually contains. Clicking links on the half-chance they are going to take you somewhere of interest is a little frustrating - I know it makes me a lot less inclined to follow the link at all - and as a result I'm possibly missing out.

Not to mention numerous accessibility issues, isn't it simply bad practice?

Apologies for not linking to any example posts - I'm not feeling at all confrontational today. No apologies if this has been discussed before - it seems to be an issue, and I think therefore worth discussing again.

posted by nthdegx on Sep 9, 2002 - 10 comments

Character limit in link description box. 940 is too many; 525 is too much for my eye, but any less may be too constraining.
posted by raaka on Sep 5, 2001 - 6 comments

is there any good way to encourage people to post real descriptions (of any kind!!!) to front page posts? please? it's tiring wanting to click a link without having any idea what the post is actually about. and the comments on that thread (at least the first few, when i saw it) don't exactly help.
posted by dogmatic on Aug 31, 2001 - 78 comments

I'd like to request a feature in which meta-information about links (e.g. source, medium, etc.) can be placed in a text field during a post. I've tried various schemes for highlighting this metainformation (different colors, italics, etc.) but 1) I frequently get flamed for it, and 2) It's taken down as it is deemed inappropriate. In my estimate, displaying metainformation in a different color is useful, because it allows the reader to filter out links he or she might not be able to/want to access. (e.g., lately, RealPlayer).

In addition, I've really been flamed about dated links. I know that metafilter is about things new and cool, but new is a relative term in different contexts. Can anyone suggest a paradigm in which I don't anger mefi'ers with such posts? Or is this more of a feature-driven concept? Or should I just tell these guys to piss off? ;)

Thanks!
posted by SilentSalamander on Apr 24, 2001 - 12 comments