random!

August 1, 2007 9:31 PM

RANDOM!
posted by delmoi to MetaFilter-Related at 9:31 PM (55 comments total)

And it works for all the subdomains!
posted by chudmonkey at 9:33 PM on August 1, 2007

I added a small "random!" link to the first line of nav up top.
posted by mathowie (staff) at 9:37 PM on August 1, 2007

And it works for all the subdomains!.

Except jobs. It does work in travel, though.
posted by delmoi at 9:38 PM on August 1, 2007

Wow, delmoi, you told me about random and travel. thanks.
posted by YoBananaBoy at 9:40 PM on August 1, 2007

Hmm, it does work in jobs, maybe I typed the URL incorrectly.

Cool matt :)
posted by delmoi at 9:40 PM on August 1, 2007

I, personally, would be a lot happier if the "random!" in the nav bar was capitalized. I find it unharmonious.
posted by chudmonkey at 9:42 PM on August 1, 2007

Wow, delmoi, you told me about random and travel. thanks.

Travel was mentioned in a podcast.
posted by delmoi at 9:42 PM on August 1, 2007

RANDOM COMMENT:
Personally, I'd like a liberal tracking device. You know, so I could walk up to one of my comrades and ask if he'd like to discuss smashing the totalitarian regime over hummus.
posted by anapestic at 4:19 PM on July 30
posted by ColdChef at 9:56 PM on August 1, 2007 [1 favorite]

Matt, please capitalize the "R" on the "random!" up there. It's making me insane.

(And, you know, the exclamation point...well, you know.)
posted by ColdChef at 10:11 PM on August 1, 2007

I love the random thread I got. It's so Dr. Seussian.
posted by iconomy at 10:14 PM on August 1, 2007

I approve of this change, mathowie.

I'd give you a promotion, but, well, you know.
posted by lekvar at 10:21 PM on August 1, 2007

Travel?!


?!
posted by MadamM at 10:28 PM on August 1, 2007

3rd-ing the capitalization thing. I actually kind of like the bang, though - that link does serve a different sort of function from the others, no?
posted by spaceman_spiff at 10:35 PM on August 1, 2007

Except jobs. It does work in travel, though.
posted by delmoi

Dammit delmoi!!! It's the Site of Which We Do Not Speak. We can't have nice things around here. Well, secret nice things.
posted by The Deej at 10:42 PM on August 1, 2007

nthing omigod Travel!
posted by jacalata at 10:43 PM on August 1, 2007

I'm warning you, all these cool new toys are making yesterMatt and morrowMatt look like a shitty slacker.
posted by Ambrosia Voyeur at 11:02 PM on August 1, 2007

I love the exclamation mark but do not like the small r.

And I'm spending way too much time playing with this over in another tab to actually bother clicking Post Comment.
posted by shelleycat at 11:05 PM on August 1, 2007

woohoo!

Now I can spend ~100% of my time on metafilter, without just refreshing the Recent Activity page.
posted by tehloki at 11:10 PM on August 1, 2007

This'll make Capitalism crumble: the cubicle drones will be hooked!
posted by davy at 11:32 PM on August 1, 2007

All hail our frisky new pony: Random factorial!
[The bang's x(x - 1)... per my tutorial.]
One click for a girl group fascistic,
Click two for some trains futuristic.
Third time the charm? Hell, no — I got goatse arboreal.
posted by rob511 at 11:40 PM on August 1, 2007 [1 favorite]

i got one from Oct 26th 2001. the only MeFite whose name i recognised was i am joe's spleen.

as for the others, it was a bit like the creepiness & slightly voyeuristic feeling of finding an old reel-to-reel in which you can year your departed relatives carrying on an everyday conversation about (the then) current affairs.
posted by UbuRoivas at 11:49 PM on August 1, 2007

Hey, he capitalized it! The system works! THE SYSTEM WORKS!
posted by tehloki at 11:53 PM on August 1, 2007

Isn't this already sidebarred?
posted by shmegegge at 12:01 AM on August 2, 2007

Ok, I capitalized and removed the bang.
posted by mathowie (staff) at 12:10 AM on August 2, 2007

shmegegge: But we can't -complain- about things in the sidebar!
posted by tehloki at 12:16 AM on August 2, 2007

Awesome! (Although the frequency that a post comes up that seems to have some connection to my day is leading me to conclude that the db has developed a consciousness and/or that Rosicrucians control this website a la 'Foucault's Pendulum.'
posted by Jofus at 12:45 AM on August 2, 2007

I ... removed the bang.

Think of the limerick, matt, the limerick!
posted by rob511 at 12:57 AM on August 2, 2007

AND ROM!
posted by Effigy2000 at 1:33 AM on August 2, 2007

Could we have a new flag that is only available on old (>5 years) posts, which flags link rot? Then maybe one day there could be an automated system whereby a certain number of link rot flags automatically replaces any broken link with an appropriate link to archive.org. It's not an urgent todo, but seeing MeFi link to 404 pages and spammy "search" sites gets me down.
posted by hoverboards don't work on water at 2:58 AM on August 2, 2007

Now where's the +beer button for my profile, damn it?
posted by stavrosthewonderchicken at 3:28 AM on August 2, 2007

Why was my ________ deleted? I _______ed a perfectly _______ ________, and all of a sudden I'm subject to the ________ whims of whichever ________ did this to me. If there is any ________ in the world, my ________ will be ________ and I won't have to ________ my right ________ .
posted by carsonb at 5:05 AM on August 2, 2007

[ ________ redacted ]
posted by cortex (staff) at 6:47 AM on August 2, 2007 [1 favorite]

A little request: I would think that with the random feature more people would be discovering old songs in Music. Would it be possible to keep old songs open to comments?

For example, this is the song with a non-Mefi theme that has the most favorites and it keeps getting more and more; it constantly appears both in the Most Playlisted and the Most Favorited Tracks lists. I can imagine that the people who might discover the song now or in the future could want to comment on it, so, would it be possible to keep songs open forever?
posted by micayetoca at 6:52 AM on August 2, 2007

would it be possible to keep [comments on] songs open forever?

I'm not necessarily against this, but I'll set aside my preferences for a minute and play devil's advocate:

Please go read about 9622 (and v.2) for some reasons why no This thread is closed to new comments might not be in the site's best interests.
posted by carsonb at 7:14 AM on August 2, 2007

Heh. What carsonb said, though I'm pretty Damn The Torpedoes on the matter—it's something we could deal with on an ad hoc basis if people got silly with it, and in the mean time, hey, why not?

I think we actually pretty decided to do this a few weeks back; it just hasn't happened yet.
posted by cortex (staff) at 7:17 AM on August 2, 2007

Would it be possible to keep old songs open to comments?

I would like this too; I'd considered making the pony request after the last podcast but thought maybe there was some reason they were closed.
posted by Tuwa at 7:28 AM on August 2, 2007

yeah, I see the point in what carsonb said, though we have to admit Music works receives a different kind of attention.

The two most favorited (or Popular, as the list says) songs have 50, and 80 comments each, I think it would be hard for a song in Music to ever reach 9622-type excesses, and it would be really cool for the musicians who submit the songs to keep receiving comments no matter how much time passed.

I think we actually pretty decided to do this a few weeks back; it just hasn't happened yet.
posted by cortex

Yeah, I remember when it came up. It sounded like a push-one-button-to-allow-it kind of thing, so I just brought it up in case it had been forgotten for more urgent things.
posted by micayetoca at 9:05 AM on August 2, 2007

I like it.
posted by Mister_A at 10:15 AM on August 2, 2007

It is done!
posted by cortex (staff) at 10:52 AM on August 2, 2007

Love!
posted by KAS at 11:10 AM on August 2, 2007

oh man! that is so cool!
posted by micayetoca at 12:15 PM on August 2, 2007

Yeah, the cat's apparantly out of the bag on travel. I just found out today too.

WE'RE ON TO YOU!
posted by craven_morhead at 12:16 PM on August 2, 2007

I will never get any work done now. Not that I did before, but now I can blame it on the new Random pony!
posted by misha at 1:05 PM on August 2, 2007

I tried it. It sent me here. I'm never trying it again.
posted by The corpse in the library at 3:10 PM on August 2, 2007

I think the random feature actually results in my posts having a better chance of being read than when they are on the front page.
posted by The Deej at 3:45 PM on August 2, 2007

I tried it. It sent me here. I'm never trying it again.

Wow. That was quite an image I posted to that thread. I have no recollection of it whatsoever, though.
posted by dersins at 4:09 PM on August 2, 2007

random!
posted by vronsky at 4:31 PM on August 2, 2007

Um, so it'd be cool if /random stayed in the address bar so all I had to do was hit refresh to get a new thread...

I could see where that might cause other issues if implemented though.
posted by ODiV at 7:37 PM on August 2, 2007

Just make it a bookmark button on your toolbar and click away.

Bingo. Or someone could write up an extension for it. Or you could just click the "Random" link in the header.
posted by cortex (staff) at 8:14 PM on August 2, 2007

Or you could just middle-click the random button a couple of times and tab-surf through the posts.
posted by tehloki at 8:32 PM on August 2, 2007

Or I could just set it as my homepage and click the home button. But I like F5.
posted by ODiV at 8:53 PM on August 2, 2007

Yeah, I decided to go with the homepage option. I'm letting you guys know because I'm sure you were on the edge of your collective seat.
posted by ODiV at 9:10 PM on August 2, 2007

I'm kind of bitter that I paid for the whole thing, in fact.
posted by cortex (staff) at 9:22 PM on August 2, 2007 [1 favorite]

Hem, can we make the /random link target=_self instead of target=self so that it doesn't open in a new "self"-named tab?
posted by that girl at 12:47 PM on August 7, 2007

^Second.
posted by tehloki at 1:32 PM on August 7, 2007