No officer, I'm not small. I'm TALL!

March 22, 2007 1:02 AM

Keeping in mind that the restriction on using html to make the words "posted by" small in comments may not be obvious to all site users, could the error message returned by the post comment action be more informative? The current error message reads "Your comment appears to be blank, go back and try again." Also, could relevant text be added to the How do I use HTML in my posts? FAQ if you please?
posted by carsonb to Feature Requests at 1:02 AM (20 comments total)

Why whatever do you mean?
p​osted by Rhomboid at 1:43 AM on March 22

Oh, I see now.
posted by Rhomboid at 1:43 AM on March 22, 2007

Still looks mighty tricksy, despite the safeguards.
posted by carsonb at 1:55 AM on March 22, 2007

There's a sloppy regex (one of many) that checks to see if <small> is immediately followed by "posted by". It doesn't matter if it's in a blockquote, and you can use non-printing characters to get around it.
posted by blasdelf at 2:16 AM on March 22, 2007

Right, and if they hadn't seen it before those who read MetaTalk will know about it now. Those who don't find out this way, though, are still only given a confusing error message to deal with.
posted by carsonb at 2:40 AM on March 22, 2007

YOUR SYSOP APPEARS TO BE BLANK
posted by quonsar at 4:06 AM on March 22, 2007

ATDT 666-QNSR

n╬♀i╜¿¼ mƒ╘ ∩¼╛< ¥│²23◘♦ùγf⌂ƒ^¢├←┘üv&◄╞órt+++br>
NO CARRIER
posted by loquacious at 4:16 AM on March 22, 2007 [2 favorites]

Once the link style in the footer becomes different site-wide (I hated it at first bit it grew on me), why not just prevent people from doing non-bold links? I know it's hard to filter, but then so's the small "posted by" line, and there should be fewer people with a legitimate need for non-bold links.
posted by fvw at 4:30 AM on March 22, 2007

When this thread was at (0) comments, I was tempted to FRIST POST a quip about quonsar showing up to make fun of mathowie's coding skills.

I refrained from prognostication, but I am glad not to be disappointed. Home is where you know and expect and love what people will say even if it drives you into paroxysms of temporary turkey-stabbing rage: it reminds you of how much you love them for all the things they aren't.

Metafilter is my moveable thanksgiving family feast.
posted by stavrosthewonderchicken at 7:17 AM on March 22, 2007

Chickens stabbing turkeys, eh? I see the age-old rivalry is not over.
posted by goodnewsfortheinsane at 8:59 AM on March 22, 2007

WHY GREEK CHICKEN IS HATE TURKEY?
posted by Mister_A at 9:02 AM on March 22, 2007

I'll fix it today.
posted by mathowie (staff) at 9:03 AM on March 22, 2007

Thanks!
posted by carsonb at 9:08 AM on March 22, 2007

n╬♀i╜¿¼ mƒ╘ ∩¼╛< ¥│²23◘♦ùγf⌂ƒ^¢├←┘üv&◄╞órt+++/i>

Quonsar needs two stop bits.
posted by eriko at 9:18 AM on March 22, 2007

I added a note to that FAQ entry.
posted by jessamyn (staff) at 9:25 AM on March 22, 2007

Thanks again!
posted by carsonb at 9:27 AM on March 22, 2007

Yeah, thanks matt and jess That one got me a week or so ago and I had no clue what was going on.
posted by quin at 11:06 AM on March 22, 2007

Might want to update this FAQ entry too:

Who is in charge here? Are there admins and moderators like other sites?

MetaFilter was created by Matt Haughey (mathowie). He was the sole admin of the site until 2005 when Jessamyn West (jessamyn) started helping keep Ask MetaFilter on track. Now they both watch the flagged posts pile up, delete questionable posts, occasionally post to the sideblog, and settle any disputes that might arise. You can email them both at the contact form.

posted by languagehat at 11:59 AM on March 22, 2007

I updated the FAQ.
posted by jessamyn (staff) at 1:35 PM on March 22, 2007

Mmm, I feel all faqqy.
posted by cortex (staff) at 5:22 PM on March 22, 2007

The 'posted by' text could be a different color (like a pale blue,) You could even make 'posted by' a different different color if it's an admin post.
posted by blenderfish at 1:36 AM on March 23, 2007