They erased his face!

June 30, 2008 1:02 PM

Faces disappearing on the MeFi Twitter page

When I first load the MeFi Twitter page, I see all the happy, smiling user avatars. Then, a few seconds after it all loads, every avatar changes to this.
I'm seeing this happen in Safari. FF is fine.

posted by Thorzdad to Bugs at 1:02 PM (25 comments total)

What version of Safari are you using? It's working fine for me in Safari 3.1.1.
posted by pb (staff) at 1:06 PM on June 30, 2008

Maybe they're all just really weirded out by something... something RIGHT BEHIND YOU.

o_O
posted by Rhaomi at 1:10 PM on June 30, 2008 [1 favorite]

There's a MeFi Twitter page?

Hmm. So there is.
posted by BitterOldPunk at 1:13 PM on June 30, 2008

I HAVE NO FACE AND I MUST TWEET
posted by waraw at 1:55 PM on June 30, 2008 [2 favorites]

pb...I'm using an admittedly pre-Cambrian version of Safari, so I'm sure that's part of the problem. Although, it's such a simple thing (displaying images) to be broken simply because your browser is a couple of revisions old.
posted by Thorzdad at 1:59 PM on June 30, 2008

Thorzdad, there's a tiny bit of JavaScript on that page that runs after the page has loaded. It detects any images that haven't loaded from Twitter's icon server, and replaces it with the default Twitter image. Since we can't control what images appear and what images don't from Twitter, it's a little insurance policy that the page won't have any broken images.

However, it sounds like this insurance policy isn't working for an older version of Safari. So if you just let me know the version, I can turn it off for that particular version of Safari. You might get some broken images, but you won't get a bunch of default icons.
posted by pb (staff) at 2:02 PM on June 30, 2008 [1 favorite]

1.3.2
(I said it was ancient)
posted by Thorzdad at 2:15 PM on June 30, 2008

Thanks! The page won't swap out bad icons for Safari versions below 3.0.

Most of the time it isn't a problem, but if Twitter sends us a bad icon URL (or the image won't load for some reason) the broken images stand out on the page. This javascript is a way to at least show something—when it works.
posted by pb (staff) at 2:25 PM on June 30, 2008

Just to be sure: you didn't travel back in time going round preventing people's births, right?
posted by goodnewsfortheinsane at 3:34 PM on June 30, 2008

Can I just say that pb, I appreciate you. You do so much cool shit around here that we don't even notice because it just quietly makes using the site pleasant. I hereby award you my favourite person of the day award.
posted by loiseau at 4:36 PM on June 30, 2008 [1 favorite]

Hear, hear!
posted by carsonb at 5:07 PM on June 30, 2008

I concur.
posted by Sys Rq at 5:11 PM on June 30, 2008

Samesies.
posted by The Esteemed Doctor Bunsen Honeydew at 7:22 PM on June 30, 2008

Ditto...squared!!
posted by pearlybob at 8:13 PM on June 30, 2008

nthed
posted by special-k at 8:57 PM on June 30, 2008

Are they disappearing outright or just fading ever-so-gradually? Because if it's the latter, you'd best do something quick smart else you'll never be born.
posted by turgid dahlia at 9:26 PM on June 30, 2008

hey, thanks!
posted by pb (staff) at 9:49 PM on June 30, 2008

When I first load the MeFi Twitter page, I see all the happy, smiling user avatars. Then, a few seconds after it all loads, every avatar changes to this.

Just out of curiosity, why on earth would you even bother to load that page? I mean, I begrudgingly understand why some people find Twitter entertaining, or even useful, but a page that's nothing but twitter updates from a seemingly endless stream of vaguely connected people?

Can I say "I'd rather spend an hour dropping cinderblocks on my feet" in less than 140 characters?

Oh, wait. I did.
posted by dersins at 10:52 PM on June 30, 2008

Because it was there?
posted by Thorzdad at 4:59 AM on July 1, 2008

Thanks for that, Dersins -- we almost let a thread about Twitter pass by without making sure everyone knew we think Twitter is rilly stupid! Awesome save.
posted by loiseau at 5:02 AM on July 1, 2008

we think Twitter is rilly stupid

If you'll actually read what I wrote, that's not what I said. I don't, in fact, think twitter is really stupid. "Rilly," on the other hand...
posted by dersins at 8:08 AM on July 1, 2008

dersins, I look at that page sometimes to find new people to follow on Twitter. I do this because I assume that MeFites have already self-selected; to "survive" on this site you've got to have at least the basics of spelling, grammar, and punctuation down. Try just looking at random non-MeFite Twitters and you'll see what I mean.
posted by fiercecupcake at 10:20 AM on July 1, 2008

tacked on pony: can there be an rss feed for mefi twitter?
posted by Arturus at 2:48 PM on July 1, 2008

Arturus, we've made a conscious decision not to offer RSS feeds for the aggregated social apps stuff. I think your best bet would be to add those MeFites you want to follow to your friends at Twitter and follow them using the RSS feeds Twitter offers. Ditto for Flickr and Last.fm. The pages are a fun way to see what other MeFi members are posting elsewhere, it's not meant as a serious alternative to reading content from those services.
posted by pb (staff) at 3:47 PM on July 1, 2008

Makes good sense. Thanks.
posted by Arturus at 7:13 PM on July 2, 2008