Palin thread weirdness in recent activity. September 3, 2008 7:13 PM Subscribe
Something weird is going on with the Sarah Palin thread and "Recent Activity"
The thread showed up three times in a row at the top of 'recent activity' and each comment in each of the repeated threads was repeated three times, as well.
This is actually the second time I've seen it do this, using two different browsers -- Chrome earlier today, and firefox on a mac just now.
The thread showed up three times in a row at the top of 'recent activity' and each comment in each of the repeated threads was repeated three times, as well.
This is actually the second time I've seen it do this, using two different browsers -- Chrome earlier today, and firefox on a mac just now.
Yeah, it happens sometimes when you've got a monster thread in RA. Probably just a weird result of the long query times.
posted by cortex (staff) at 7:15 PM on September 3, 2008
posted by cortex (staff) at 7:15 PM on September 3, 2008
It's actually getting way too long, and if we were voting, I'd vote to close it and start a new one.
If we were voting, that is.
posted by yhbc at 7:23 PM on September 3, 2008
If we were voting, that is.
posted by yhbc at 7:23 PM on September 3, 2008
I want it to last until the election. That would be awesome!
posted by crossoverman at 7:27 PM on September 3, 2008
posted by crossoverman at 7:27 PM on September 3, 2008
This is a pretty good livebloggy snark time, if you want an alternative.
posted by cortex (staff) at 7:31 PM on September 3, 2008
posted by cortex (staff) at 7:31 PM on September 3, 2008
You know, I don't mind that MeFi is blocked at work. I understand it, really. But you know the reason why they block it? "Politics/Forum" That just disgusts the hell out of me. I hope it's just the IT lackeys whose job it is to block sites who wrote this description, and not a general consensus view of the site. Because this place is SO, SO much more than politics, a 2700+ comment thread notwithstanding. Did Barack McCain win yet?
posted by SeizeTheDay at 7:34 PM on September 3, 2008
posted by SeizeTheDay at 7:34 PM on September 3, 2008
It's actually getting way too long, and if we were voting, I'd vote to close it and start a new one.
You would vote to RUN AWAY and TURN TAIL like a COWARD? Have some guts! Hang in there!
posted by Fuzzy Skinner at 7:55 PM on September 3, 2008 [2 favorites]
You would vote to RUN AWAY and TURN TAIL like a COWARD? Have some guts! Hang in there!
posted by Fuzzy Skinner at 7:55 PM on September 3, 2008 [2 favorites]
We just need to get more posts in the thread until we can bring peace to the database.
posted by empath at 7:59 PM on September 3, 2008 [1 favorite]
posted by empath at 7:59 PM on September 3, 2008 [1 favorite]
I am pro-Life in regards to FPPs with long comment counts. I am also a soccer mom.
posted by KokuRyu at 8:08 PM on September 3, 2008 [2 favorites]
posted by KokuRyu at 8:08 PM on September 3, 2008 [2 favorites]
I think her Canadian accent is messing with the source code.
posted by lee at 8:10 PM on September 3, 2008
posted by lee at 8:10 PM on September 3, 2008
That thread has more executive experience than all three of the other threads, combined!
posted by Dave Faris at 8:19 PM on September 3, 2008 [1 favorite]
posted by Dave Faris at 8:19 PM on September 3, 2008 [1 favorite]
Is the RSS feed for that thread busted for others too? I am using Sage in FF and getting "XML Parse Error".
posted by telstar at 8:38 PM on September 3, 2008
posted by telstar at 8:38 PM on September 3, 2008
The Violet Blue & Boing Boing thread did the same thing for me towards the end.
posted by Kattullus at 8:55 PM on September 3, 2008
posted by Kattullus at 8:55 PM on September 3, 2008
Oh wow, thanks for that link cortex. I had no idea a real PoliticalFilter existed. I'm very happy.
posted by Nattie at 8:56 PM on September 3, 2008
posted by Nattie at 8:56 PM on September 3, 2008
You would vote to RUN AWAY and TURN TAIL like a COWARD? Have some guts! Hang in there!
Stay the course.
posted by voltairemodern at 9:07 PM on September 3, 2008
Stay the course.
posted by voltairemodern at 9:07 PM on September 3, 2008
I was for that thread before I was against it.
posted by Blazecock Pileon at 9:59 PM on September 3, 2008 [3 favorites]
posted by Blazecock Pileon at 9:59 PM on September 3, 2008 [3 favorites]
I wouldn't mind seeing the current thread killed and another started- some kind of pagination maybe? I'm enjoying reading it, but having to download and render 3K comments every time is getting really frustrating and putting a real strain on my RAM and CPU.
posted by Pope Guilty at 10:04 PM on September 3, 2008
posted by Pope Guilty at 10:04 PM on September 3, 2008
Yeah, pushing refresh on that one is a pain. Maybe someone can post about Jamie Lynn Spears sending Bristol Palin a baby gift and it can continue there. There will have to be another post eventually.
posted by lee at 10:15 PM on September 3, 2008
posted by lee at 10:15 PM on September 3, 2008
I don't care if we have to post in that thread for a hundred years, we're staying there until our work is done!
posted by crossoverman at 10:19 PM on September 3, 2008 [1 favorite]
posted by crossoverman at 10:19 PM on September 3, 2008 [1 favorite]
but having to download and render 3K comments every time is getting really frustrating and putting a real strain on my RAM and CPU.
Stop your complaining. Don't you know that John McCain was a P.O.W.?
posted by Cool Papa Bell at 10:20 PM on September 3, 2008 [10 favorites]
Stop your complaining. Don't you know that John McCain was a P.O.W.?
posted by Cool Papa Bell at 10:20 PM on September 3, 2008 [10 favorites]
Someone could do a FPP about her historic acceptance speech, with a link to video/full text, the AP truth-squad article on it and soem commentary.
posted by empath at 10:24 PM on September 3, 2008
posted by empath at 10:24 PM on September 3, 2008
In other words, we need to pull our posts out of an unnecessary thread that should have never been FPP'd and should have never been replied to, and start posting where the true fpp about her historic candidacy should have been.
posted by empath at 10:25 PM on September 3, 2008
posted by empath at 10:25 PM on September 3, 2008
And bring our wounded RSS feeds and recent activity pages home with the honor and dignity they deserve.
Have we beaten that metaphor to death yet?
posted by empath at 10:26 PM on September 3, 2008
Have we beaten that metaphor to death yet?
posted by empath at 10:26 PM on September 3, 2008
What if we were able to add collapses into threads, like at every 500 comments? And super long threads (1000+) comments would load with the 2nd, 3rd, etc. batch of 500 comments "closed" (ie. collapsed)?
posted by iamkimiam at 10:38 PM on September 3, 2008
posted by iamkimiam at 10:38 PM on September 3, 2008
Once a thread reaches 3K comments you should have to pay to post. Won't you think of the children?
posted by Sailormom at 10:38 PM on September 3, 2008
posted by Sailormom at 10:38 PM on September 3, 2008
kind of like the recent activity greasemonkey script.
posted by iamkimiam at 10:39 PM on September 3, 2008
posted by iamkimiam at 10:39 PM on September 3, 2008
What that thread needs is a comment-surge. If we can commit to sending another hundred thousand comments there, we might be able to achieve a victory over the trolls. Until that happens, I will not even consider any sort of decrease in effort. If you think cutting-and-running is a good idea, then you're helping the enemy to win.
posted by blue_beetle at 10:41 PM on September 3, 2008 [1 favorite]
posted by blue_beetle at 10:41 PM on September 3, 2008 [1 favorite]
Once a thread reaches 3K comments you should have to pay to post. Won't you think of the children?
That's a pretty good idea. The proceeds could be donated to Planned Parenthood or the National Domestic Violence Hotline.
posted by Blazecock Pileon at 10:45 PM on September 3, 2008
That's a pretty good idea. The proceeds could be donated to Planned Parenthood or the National Domestic Violence Hotline.
posted by Blazecock Pileon at 10:45 PM on September 3, 2008
I was for that thread before I was against it.
He favorited it before he flagged it.
What if we were able to add collapses into threads, like at every 500 comments? And super long threads (1000+) comments would load with the 2nd, 3rd, etc. batch of 500 comments "closed" (ie. collapsed)?
We're not really down with pagination for threads. Huge monsters are very much the exception rather than the rule.
posted by cortex (staff) at 10:49 PM on September 3, 2008
He favorited it before he flagged it.
What if we were able to add collapses into threads, like at every 500 comments? And super long threads (1000+) comments would load with the 2nd, 3rd, etc. batch of 500 comments "closed" (ie. collapsed)?
We're not really down with pagination for threads. Huge monsters are very much the exception rather than the rule.
posted by cortex (staff) at 10:49 PM on September 3, 2008
9/11
Interesting you would mention that thread. I just took a look at it yesterday in a moment (a few of them actually) of deep procrastination and found it riveting stuff. Feeling the world change one comment at a time. From initial shock and confusion (lots of false rumours etc) to the inevitable taking of sides, picking of arguments ... and so on. My point being, I'm damned glad it's there in its entirety, unedited, uncollapsed.
posted by philip-random at 10:53 PM on September 3, 2008
Interesting you would mention that thread. I just took a look at it yesterday in a moment (a few of them actually) of deep procrastination and found it riveting stuff. Feeling the world change one comment at a time. From initial shock and confusion (lots of false rumours etc) to the inevitable taking of sides, picking of arguments ... and so on. My point being, I'm damned glad it's there in its entirety, unedited, uncollapsed.
posted by philip-random at 10:53 PM on September 3, 2008
9/11
Who said that???
Which one of ya'll dead motherfuckers just said that shit?
Was it you, stringbean? You skinny ass looking motherfucker.
You did not just do that.
Oh, now you fucked up!
Now you fucked up!
Now you fucked up!
You have fucked up now!
posted by Cool Papa Bell at 10:59 PM on September 3, 2008
Who said that???
Which one of ya'll dead motherfuckers just said that shit?
Was it you, stringbean? You skinny ass looking motherfucker.
You did not just do that.
Oh, now you fucked up!
Now you fucked up!
Now you fucked up!
You have fucked up now!
posted by Cool Papa Bell at 10:59 PM on September 3, 2008
What if we were able to add collapses into threads, like at every 500 comments? And super long threads (1000+) comments would load with the 2nd, 3rd, etc. batch of 500 comments "closed" (ie. collapsed)?
Yeah this was addressed in the last MeTa thread about the Palin thread - if Matt started doing this, people would be that much less likely to read the prior discussion, and it would break the flow of conversation every time a new 'page' rolled over.
posted by Ryvar at 11:04 PM on September 3, 2008
Yeah this was addressed in the last MeTa thread about the Palin thread - if Matt started doing this, people would be that much less likely to read the prior discussion, and it would break the flow of conversation every time a new 'page' rolled over.
posted by Ryvar at 11:04 PM on September 3, 2008
We just need to get more posts in the thread until we can bring peace to the database.
Of course, that's Peace With Honor. Or, Parse Error, I'm not sure which...
posted by flapjax at midnite at 11:13 PM on September 3, 2008
Of course, that's Peace With Honor. Or, Parse Error, I'm not sure which...
posted by flapjax at midnite at 11:13 PM on September 3, 2008
Something weird is going on with the Sarah Palin thread and "Recent Activity"
I know! People are still defending that wench.
posted by clearly at 11:39 PM on September 3, 2008 [3 favorites]
I know! People are still defending that wench.
posted by clearly at 11:39 PM on September 3, 2008 [3 favorites]
PALIN: <> Oh, I not one of those *liberal* *beltway* *elitists*... Did you know that every day, Mexican gays sneak into the country and unplug brain-dead ladies? <>
posted by KokuRyu at 11:53 PM on September 3, 2008
posted by KokuRyu at 11:53 PM on September 3, 2008
Ah that didn't work out.
Imagine Palin saying that in a Homer Simpson voice.
posted by KokuRyu at 11:54 PM on September 3, 2008
Imagine Palin saying that in a Homer Simpson voice.
posted by KokuRyu at 11:54 PM on September 3, 2008
I am sooo glad I didn't comment in that thread.
Seriously though, I am having a heck of a time going back and re-reading my favorited comments from that thread. They're all truncated, and re-loading the thread every time I want to see the rest of the comment really blows.
posted by iamkimiam at 12:32 AM on September 4, 2008
Seriously though, I am having a heck of a time going back and re-reading my favorited comments from that thread. They're all truncated, and re-loading the thread every time I want to see the rest of the comment really blows.
posted by iamkimiam at 12:32 AM on September 4, 2008
Someone could do a FPP about her historic acceptance speech, with a link to video/full text, the AP truth-squad article on it and soem commentary.
Okay, I'm going to have a hard time sleeping until I know if that was supposed to "some" or "solemn".
posted by tkolar at 12:33 AM on September 4, 2008
Okay, I'm going to have a hard time sleeping until I know if that was supposed to "some" or "solemn".
posted by tkolar at 12:33 AM on September 4, 2008
You're a very strange country, you know?
posted by timeistight at 12:37 AM on September 4, 2008 [2 favorites]
posted by timeistight at 12:37 AM on September 4, 2008 [2 favorites]
Okay, I'm going to have a hard time sleeping until I know if that was supposed to "some" or "solemn".
I actually meant to type 'hysterical'.
posted by empath at 12:40 AM on September 4, 2008 [1 favorite]
I actually meant to type 'hysterical'.
posted by empath at 12:40 AM on September 4, 2008 [1 favorite]
If we were voting, that is.
/me organizes community to make this happen
posted by DU at 4:26 AM on September 4, 2008
/me organizes community to make this happen
posted by DU at 4:26 AM on September 4, 2008
MetaFilter is a republic, not a democracy.
posted by fourcheesemac at 5:07 AM on September 4, 2008
posted by fourcheesemac at 5:07 AM on September 4, 2008
I think of it as more like a benign disctatorship.
posted by adamvasco at 5:20 AM on September 4, 2008
posted by adamvasco at 5:20 AM on September 4, 2008
I think her Canadian accent is messing with the source code.
Are you from South Park?
posted by Neiltupper at 5:22 AM on September 4, 2008
Are you from South Park?
posted by Neiltupper at 5:22 AM on September 4, 2008
Maybe someone could leave a note in that thread saying we're continuing here?
I would rather fight the trolls here than at home on the blue.
posted by sveskemus at 6:18 AM on September 4, 2008 [1 favorite]
I would rather fight the trolls here than at home on the blue.
posted by sveskemus at 6:18 AM on September 4, 2008 [1 favorite]
This is a pretty good livebloggy snark time, if you want an alternative.
well, the alternative -- since, you know, the users of the website you work for seem to be really, really interested in that topic -- would be to allow another thread to be opened so that it is more usable, instead of attempting -- clumsily -- againg and again to drive them over to another website.
those users are being punished for their interest by having to comment in an almost-impossible-to-view thread, but it's all OK -- politics is bad for MeFi's business because AskMe is the more successful part of the site and it's apolitical. being singled out as a DailyKos with a blue background is not conductive to the kind of brand this site's owner wants, and it can seriously make prospective conservative AskMefi users more wary of joining/using the site. a Republican's five dollars are worth as much as a Democrat's, after all -- not to mention the page views they give to site are counted exactly as much as Democratic users are.
it's unfortunate that Matt's audience is way more liberal than he'd like it to be on a business standpoint, but it's a fact. creating a monster 9622-style thread just to make the point that WE DON'T WANT MORE PLAIN SHIT AROUND HERE UNDERSTAND? is a bit, you know, weak. repeating again and again to fuck off over at politicalfilter is downright passive-aggressive.
to sum it up: please contribute more and more free content to the Blue's front page (recycling Digg and Reddit is OK, too, as long as it's not political), because it keeps the business healthy (and we all want that, don't get me wrong -- we're way past the moment in history where MeFi could simply survive as some cool guy's hobby, it's either a business or it can't stay up, but still) . please contribute more and more answers on askmefi (in a humorless, dry, possibly professorial way that doesn't upset the moderators). but please don't talk about the future Vice President of the USA, because we'd rather you wouldn't.
using politicalfilter as a trash can for the stuff you don't think your users should discuss, even if they really want to, is, as I said, more than a bit weak.
with all due respect to our moderators, and the site's owner (who knows he has my utmost gratitude), of course.
posted by matteo at 6:26 AM on September 4, 2008 [5 favorites]
well, the alternative -- since, you know, the users of the website you work for seem to be really, really interested in that topic -- would be to allow another thread to be opened so that it is more usable, instead of attempting -- clumsily -- againg and again to drive them over to another website.
those users are being punished for their interest by having to comment in an almost-impossible-to-view thread, but it's all OK -- politics is bad for MeFi's business because AskMe is the more successful part of the site and it's apolitical. being singled out as a DailyKos with a blue background is not conductive to the kind of brand this site's owner wants, and it can seriously make prospective conservative AskMefi users more wary of joining/using the site. a Republican's five dollars are worth as much as a Democrat's, after all -- not to mention the page views they give to site are counted exactly as much as Democratic users are.
it's unfortunate that Matt's audience is way more liberal than he'd like it to be on a business standpoint, but it's a fact. creating a monster 9622-style thread just to make the point that WE DON'T WANT MORE PLAIN SHIT AROUND HERE UNDERSTAND? is a bit, you know, weak. repeating again and again to fuck off over at politicalfilter is downright passive-aggressive.
to sum it up: please contribute more and more free content to the Blue's front page (recycling Digg and Reddit is OK, too, as long as it's not political), because it keeps the business healthy (and we all want that, don't get me wrong -- we're way past the moment in history where MeFi could simply survive as some cool guy's hobby, it's either a business or it can't stay up, but still) . please contribute more and more answers on askmefi (in a humorless, dry, possibly professorial way that doesn't upset the moderators). but please don't talk about the future Vice President of the USA, because we'd rather you wouldn't.
using politicalfilter as a trash can for the stuff you don't think your users should discuss, even if they really want to, is, as I said, more than a bit weak.
with all due respect to our moderators, and the site's owner (who knows he has my utmost gratitude), of course.
posted by matteo at 6:26 AM on September 4, 2008 [5 favorites]
Yeah, pushing refresh on that one is a pain. Maybe someone can post about Jamie Lynn Spears sending Bristol Palin a baby gift and it can continue there. There will have to be another post eventually.
I can do this.
posted by Stynxno at 6:48 AM on September 4, 2008 [1 favorite]
I can do this.
posted by Stynxno at 6:48 AM on September 4, 2008 [1 favorite]
those users are being punished for their interest by having to comment in an almost-impossible-to-view thread
A thread that, despite being "impossible to view", has been clicking along at a tremendous pace for five days and just crossed the 3000 comment threshold. Very large threads on mefi have been proven to be mildly annoying to view, yes, but it hasn't stopped folks from participating as normal.
politics is bad for MeFi's business because AskMe is the more successful part of the site and it's apolitical.
This is a pure leap. None of us consider those two thoughts even remotely related.
it's unfortunate that Matt's audience is way more liberal than he'd like it to be on a business standpoint
Again, seriously, you're boxing at shadows here.
being singled out as a DailyKos with a blue background is not conductive to the kind of brand this site's owner wants, and it can seriously make prospective conservative AskMefi users more wary of joining/using the site.
He doesn't not want it to be branded as Kos; he doesn't want it to fucking be Kos. Seriously, how is this new? Mefi is not, and has not ever been, a political blog. Why should it suddenly start?
And please, for god's sake, drop it with this "courting profitable askme users" thing. It's off the wall, and the least of our problems at this point is finding new members. You're asserting motives that are insultingly off target as a justification for telling us we're doing things that we aren't doing.
but please don't talk about the future Vice President of the USA, because we'd rather you wouldn't.
We'd like you not to so much that it's going on in like three places on the site including a record-breaking thread.
You are asking for us to please say "hey, we're totally cool with someone making a shit perfunctory post so that idle chatter on Palin's vp nom is slightly more convenient." That sucks. It's not Metafilter, it's Metafilter Chatroom. We're getting to the point where there's actually been enough time and enough news that someone could probably put together an actually decent new Palin/McCain/RNC post (read: not a goddam "Bristol is preggers!" newsflash) and it'd be fine. But a shit post? No.
And PoliFi isn't a trashcan, it's an alternative if the, again, still totally zooming Palin thread isn't chatty enough for you. Metachat's not a trashcan either; neither is SportsFilter, or BBQ, or (pour a forty out) Devoter. They're other places that can handle some of the around-the-edges overflow from what Metafilter normally provides. You're shitting on both that site and this one when you dismiss that all as telling people "to fuck off".
posted by cortex (staff) at 6:49 AM on September 4, 2008 [11 favorites]
A thread that, despite being "impossible to view", has been clicking along at a tremendous pace for five days and just crossed the 3000 comment threshold. Very large threads on mefi have been proven to be mildly annoying to view, yes, but it hasn't stopped folks from participating as normal.
politics is bad for MeFi's business because AskMe is the more successful part of the site and it's apolitical.
This is a pure leap. None of us consider those two thoughts even remotely related.
it's unfortunate that Matt's audience is way more liberal than he'd like it to be on a business standpoint
Again, seriously, you're boxing at shadows here.
being singled out as a DailyKos with a blue background is not conductive to the kind of brand this site's owner wants, and it can seriously make prospective conservative AskMefi users more wary of joining/using the site.
He doesn't not want it to be branded as Kos; he doesn't want it to fucking be Kos. Seriously, how is this new? Mefi is not, and has not ever been, a political blog. Why should it suddenly start?
And please, for god's sake, drop it with this "courting profitable askme users" thing. It's off the wall, and the least of our problems at this point is finding new members. You're asserting motives that are insultingly off target as a justification for telling us we're doing things that we aren't doing.
but please don't talk about the future Vice President of the USA, because we'd rather you wouldn't.
We'd like you not to so much that it's going on in like three places on the site including a record-breaking thread.
You are asking for us to please say "hey, we're totally cool with someone making a shit perfunctory post so that idle chatter on Palin's vp nom is slightly more convenient." That sucks. It's not Metafilter, it's Metafilter Chatroom. We're getting to the point where there's actually been enough time and enough news that someone could probably put together an actually decent new Palin/McCain/RNC post (read: not a goddam "Bristol is preggers!" newsflash) and it'd be fine. But a shit post? No.
And PoliFi isn't a trashcan, it's an alternative if the, again, still totally zooming Palin thread isn't chatty enough for you. Metachat's not a trashcan either; neither is SportsFilter, or BBQ, or (pour a forty out) Devoter. They're other places that can handle some of the around-the-edges overflow from what Metafilter normally provides. You're shitting on both that site and this one when you dismiss that all as telling people "to fuck off".
posted by cortex (staff) at 6:49 AM on September 4, 2008 [11 favorites]
If matteo gets his way and we become a blue Daily Kos, then *I* demand PornoFilter. There's a brilliant business case for it, and... everyone else is doing it, so why can't *we*?
posted by KokuRyu at 7:00 AM on September 4, 2008
posted by KokuRyu at 7:00 AM on September 4, 2008
I heard Sarah Palin's actually a grandmother already. For real peoples!
Actually, I want that rumor to be true so badly.
posted by chunking express at 7:04 AM on September 4, 2008
Actually, I want that rumor to be true so badly.
posted by chunking express at 7:04 AM on September 4, 2008
then *I* demand PornoFilter
*Resisters domain name, begins coding*
posted by Brandon Blatcher at 7:05 AM on September 4, 2008
*Resisters domain name, begins coding*
posted by Brandon Blatcher at 7:05 AM on September 4, 2008
with all due respect to our moderators, and the site's owner
try harder; I know what respect is and that's not it.
for anyone who has commented in that thread, which really seems to be most of everyone, they can read the thread at least partway via recent comments which makes it a lot easier to check out or at least check in on.
as has already been stated in this thread, the original objection to another thread was that OMG threads about Palin's daughter's pregnancy seemed tawdry and creepy and not very MeFi-like. I don't think we're saying "no more Palin threads" at all, I think we're saying "Make a MeFi-worthy post if you're going to splinter off of the thread that already exists" I'm a little surprised we didn't see a decent RNC wrap-up yesterday, to be honest and I wouldn't mind one now if someone could do it without it being a snarky jeering cattle-prod of a post.
posted by jessamyn (staff) at 7:09 AM on September 4, 2008
try harder; I know what respect is and that's not it.
for anyone who has commented in that thread, which really seems to be most of everyone, they can read the thread at least partway via recent comments which makes it a lot easier to check out or at least check in on.
as has already been stated in this thread, the original objection to another thread was that OMG threads about Palin's daughter's pregnancy seemed tawdry and creepy and not very MeFi-like. I don't think we're saying "no more Palin threads" at all, I think we're saying "Make a MeFi-worthy post if you're going to splinter off of the thread that already exists" I'm a little surprised we didn't see a decent RNC wrap-up yesterday, to be honest and I wouldn't mind one now if someone could do it without it being a snarky jeering cattle-prod of a post.
posted by jessamyn (staff) at 7:09 AM on September 4, 2008
Proposal: Move the current blue to notpalin.metafilter.com, and www.metafilter.com will become all Palin, all the time. I think this is what the users want.
posted by Mr. President Dr. Steve Elvis America at 7:11 AM on September 4, 2008
posted by Mr. President Dr. Steve Elvis America at 7:11 AM on September 4, 2008
matteo writes "to sum it up: please contribute more and more free content to the Blue's front page (recycling Digg and Reddit is OK, too, as long as it's not political), because it keeps the business healthy"
Agreed. We all contribute the content here, and Matt takes home the money, and that's fine.
Yes, yes, it's Matt's site to do with as he pleases, but the value of the site comes from the community that posts the content and the askMe answers that keep people coming back and making the page views that sell the ad space.
But forcing the most involved commenters into a ghetto of a crowded over-long barely-loadable thread just so that Matt can keep the horror of political opinion off the public marquee is a slap in the face. We're respectable enough to Digg up content if we Reddit, but apparently too scruffy and off-putting to have our politics visible more than once a month.
posted by orthogonality at 7:32 AM on September 4, 2008 [1 favorite]
Agreed. We all contribute the content here, and Matt takes home the money, and that's fine.
Yes, yes, it's Matt's site to do with as he pleases, but the value of the site comes from the community that posts the content and the askMe answers that keep people coming back and making the page views that sell the ad space.
But forcing the most involved commenters into a ghetto of a crowded over-long barely-loadable thread just so that Matt can keep the horror of political opinion off the public marquee is a slap in the face. We're respectable enough to Digg up content if we Reddit, but apparently too scruffy and off-putting to have our politics visible more than once a month.
posted by orthogonality at 7:32 AM on September 4, 2008 [1 favorite]
forcing the most involved commenters into a ghetto of a crowded over-long barely-loadable thread
Melodramatic much?
posted by Dave Faris at 7:35 AM on September 4, 2008
Melodramatic much?
posted by Dave Faris at 7:35 AM on September 4, 2008
Wow, that was the biggest dick comment I've seen directed toward Matt in a long time, and that includes some of the asshole things I've said recently. I would say that congratulations are in order for such an honor, but I doubt we'll see a parade anytime soon.
If MeFi is such a money-making machine, why is your commie ass still here matteo? Oh that's right; you want your cake (the audience this site gives you) and to eat it too (lean on management to do things your way). Sucks that you'd resort to such a nasty approach to make your point, but I guess none of us can be too surprised, right?
posted by SeizeTheDay at 7:37 AM on September 4, 2008 [2 favorites]
If MeFi is such a money-making machine, why is your commie ass still here matteo? Oh that's right; you want your cake (the audience this site gives you) and to eat it too (lean on management to do things your way). Sucks that you'd resort to such a nasty approach to make your point, but I guess none of us can be too surprised, right?
posted by SeizeTheDay at 7:37 AM on September 4, 2008 [2 favorites]
Deleting shit updatefilter posts on the front page is a slap in the face. Okay.
We've only had one political post per month. Check.
Seriously, there's the actual site, and then there's this bizarro universe one that you guys are railing against. You dislike that we didn't let one of the followup Palin posts stand, that's fine; I didn't think any of them were any good, but we can reasonably disagree. But painting this as some attempt to whitewash politics off the front page—have you been reading Metafilter, at all, lately?—is just plain weird.
If you want to go yet another round on the "oh god someone linked something that was also on Digg" thing, there's a thread from a few days ago on more or less that same subject. Metafilter does not exist in a vacuum, and Digg/Reddit are designed to aggregate links; you could as soon complain that something was already linked on del.icio.us. If your concern is how granular political posting on the front page should be, don't sidetrack it with that.
posted by cortex (staff) at 7:41 AM on September 4, 2008
We've only had one political post per month. Check.
Seriously, there's the actual site, and then there's this bizarro universe one that you guys are railing against. You dislike that we didn't let one of the followup Palin posts stand, that's fine; I didn't think any of them were any good, but we can reasonably disagree. But painting this as some attempt to whitewash politics off the front page—have you been reading Metafilter, at all, lately?—is just plain weird.
If you want to go yet another round on the "oh god someone linked something that was also on Digg" thing, there's a thread from a few days ago on more or less that same subject. Metafilter does not exist in a vacuum, and Digg/Reddit are designed to aggregate links; you could as soon complain that something was already linked on del.icio.us. If your concern is how granular political posting on the front page should be, don't sidetrack it with that.
posted by cortex (staff) at 7:41 AM on September 4, 2008
(...)forcing the most involved commenters into a ghetto of a crowded over-long barely-loadable thread just so that Matt can keep the horror of political opinion off the public marquee is a slap in the face.
You've been watching too much hyperbolic speechmaking.
I say this as a person who has commented in and kept up with thread since it started: it's a fucking sewer. I'm glad we have it, but I'm much more glad that we don't have another dozen like it. Or, it in a dozen different parts.
posted by dirtdirt at 7:45 AM on September 4, 2008 [1 favorite]
You've been watching too much hyperbolic speechmaking.
I say this as a person who has commented in and kept up with thread since it started: it's a fucking sewer. I'm glad we have it, but I'm much more glad that we don't have another dozen like it. Or, it in a dozen different parts.
posted by dirtdirt at 7:45 AM on September 4, 2008 [1 favorite]
You're a very strange country, you know?
posted by timeistight at 3:37 AM
You have... no idea.
/Jeremy Irons as Claus Von Bulow
I don't care if we have another thread or not, but trying to comment in that thread is annoying from a typing and having the words scroll into the comment box a second later point of view. Leaving all the site policy stuff aside.
Oh well, I've been annoyed before and I expect I will be again at some point, what with the way things have been trending in this crazy old world.
posted by Divine_Wino at 7:56 AM on September 4, 2008 [1 favorite]
posted by timeistight at 3:37 AM
You have... no idea.
/Jeremy Irons as Claus Von Bulow
I don't care if we have another thread or not, but trying to comment in that thread is annoying from a typing and having the words scroll into the comment box a second later point of view. Leaving all the site policy stuff aside.
Oh well, I've been annoyed before and I expect I will be again at some point, what with the way things have been trending in this crazy old world.
posted by Divine_Wino at 7:56 AM on September 4, 2008 [1 favorite]
dirtdirt writes "I say this as a person who has commented in and kept up with thread since it started:"
Uh-huh. Yes, you posted that the thread works perfectly, if we all download a beta copy of a new browser.
posted by orthogonality at 7:56 AM on September 4, 2008
Tip: That new Google Chrome browser loads and renders this page much more easily than IE or FF. Yay!
I kept missing bombshells in the 'recent activity' view. Now, thanks to Chrome, I am privy to every allegation of dumbassery as it happens! Whee!
posted to MetaFilter by dirtdirt at 9:31 AM on September 3, 2008 [+]
Uh-huh. Yes, you posted that the thread works perfectly, if we all download a beta copy of a new browser.
posted by orthogonality at 7:56 AM on September 4, 2008
orthogonality: Uh-huh. Yes, you posted that the thread works perfectly, if we all download a beta copy of a new browser.
It seems to be OK in web kit based browsers like Chrome or Safari. Current released version of Safari has no issues loading the thread.
posted by nathan_teske at 8:11 AM on September 4, 2008
It seems to be OK in web kit based browsers like Chrome or Safari. Current released version of Safari has no issues loading the thread.
posted by nathan_teske at 8:11 AM on September 4, 2008
cortex writes "We're getting to the point where there's actually been enough time and enough news that someone could probably put together an actually decent new Palin/McCain/RNC post (read: not a goddam 'Bristol is preggers!' newsflash) and it'd be fine. But a shit post? No."
But no one wants to spend the time and effort to try to achieve what you'll judge a "good post", because the perception is that you'll delete a post even if it's good, just because it's about Palin.
This perception exists because Matt candidly admitted, when asked for a faster loading Palin thread, that he preferred to restrict discussion to the one thread, even though that inconvenienced people. In the face of that, who's going to make the effort to post a new, "acceptable" thread?
The exact same thing happened over the Gonzales Congressional testimony; a whole slew of decent posts got deleted because the mods were adamant that that was too political, or that they just didn't want to see another Gonzales post.
But we shouldn't have to resort to seeing good post after good post deleted until some arbitrary mod decision to let one through, or sit out ten-minute page loads, to be able to discuss things of interest to many in the community.
posted by orthogonality at 8:11 AM on September 4, 2008
But no one wants to spend the time and effort to try to achieve what you'll judge a "good post", because the perception is that you'll delete a post even if it's good, just because it's about Palin.
This perception exists because Matt candidly admitted, when asked for a faster loading Palin thread, that he preferred to restrict discussion to the one thread, even though that inconvenienced people. In the face of that, who's going to make the effort to post a new, "acceptable" thread?
The exact same thing happened over the Gonzales Congressional testimony; a whole slew of decent posts got deleted because the mods were adamant that that was too political, or that they just didn't want to see another Gonzales post.
But we shouldn't have to resort to seeing good post after good post deleted until some arbitrary mod decision to let one through, or sit out ten-minute page loads, to be able to discuss things of interest to many in the community.
posted by orthogonality at 8:11 AM on September 4, 2008
repeated request for pseudo-pagination: anchors at the top of every 100th comment or so, like
posted by fantabulous timewaster at 8:15 AM on September 4, 2008 [4 favorites]
comments: first -- 100 -- 200 -- 300This wouldn't show up on short threads and would be helpful on long ones.
posted by fantabulous timewaster at 8:15 AM on September 4, 2008 [4 favorites]
What if it paginated at 3000 posts or something? Super long threads like this don't come around very often, and 3000 posts is still a browser chugger.
I understand the desire not to promote... no, I don't. What are we not promoting here? Political threads? We do one a month, barring historical events. I know you don't want Metafilter to become dailykos or whatever, but adding pagination to a thread isn't going to do that.
Wouldn't paginating save some bandwidth from any junkies refreshing?
posted by graventy at 8:16 AM on September 4, 2008
I understand the desire not to promote... no, I don't. What are we not promoting here? Political threads? We do one a month, barring historical events. I know you don't want Metafilter to become dailykos or whatever, but adding pagination to a thread isn't going to do that.
Wouldn't paginating save some bandwidth from any junkies refreshing?
posted by graventy at 8:16 AM on September 4, 2008
Q: How many Sarah Palins does it take to screw in a lightbulb?
A: I'm keeping the baby!
posted by Meatbomb at 8:19 AM on September 4, 2008
A: I'm keeping the baby!
posted by Meatbomb at 8:19 AM on September 4, 2008
Q: How many Sarah Palins does it take to screw in a lightbulb?
A: That's not a decision women should be allowed to make, but I'm keeping the baby!
posted by graventy at 8:22 AM on September 4, 2008 [3 favorites]
A: That's not a decision women should be allowed to make, but I'm keeping the baby!
posted by graventy at 8:22 AM on September 4, 2008 [3 favorites]
I agree it is a big thread. I'd rather a few big threads like that than a million little ones, and my comment in that thread regarding Chrome was meant as possible help for people, like me, who want to read that thread, but were having hard time with the size.
I've got to assume that since you can load the thread and cherry pick a comment of mine out of it, that you are really not all that hindered either.
posted by dirtdirt at 8:26 AM on September 4, 2008
I've got to assume that since you can load the thread and cherry pick a comment of mine out of it, that you are really not all that hindered either.
posted by dirtdirt at 8:26 AM on September 4, 2008
But no one wants to spend the time and effort to try to achieve what you'll judge a "good post", because the perception is that you'll delete a post even if it's good, just because it's about Palin.
If people are so adamant that the mods here are actively stopping political posts on Metafiler, then they should spend 15 minutes and try to make a decent post(god knows there's enough material) just to prove they're doing something so shitty.
But complaining you're that you're scared it'll be deleted is just nuts.
posted by Brandon Blatcher at 8:27 AM on September 4, 2008
If people are so adamant that the mods here are actively stopping political posts on Metafiler, then they should spend 15 minutes and try to make a decent post(god knows there's enough material) just to prove they're doing something so shitty.
But complaining you're that you're scared it'll be deleted is just nuts.
posted by Brandon Blatcher at 8:27 AM on September 4, 2008
But no one wants to spend the time and effort to try to achieve what you'll judge a "good post", because the perception is that you'll delete a post even if it's good, just because it's about Palin.
We've had people post in explicit snarky defiance of requests not to in the past. I wouldn't be surprised if a few people have read this thread and erred on the side of caution with a mediocre updatefilter post in the last couple days, but I have a hard time believing that every person who has seen this or the other thread, let alone everyone else in the userbase, is so cowed by the deletion of a couple of meh update posts that suddenly no one can summon the wherewithal to make a post that they think is genuinely solid.
posted by cortex (staff) at 8:28 AM on September 4, 2008
We've had people post in explicit snarky defiance of requests not to in the past. I wouldn't be surprised if a few people have read this thread and erred on the side of caution with a mediocre updatefilter post in the last couple days, but I have a hard time believing that every person who has seen this or the other thread, let alone everyone else in the userbase, is so cowed by the deletion of a couple of meh update posts that suddenly no one can summon the wherewithal to make a post that they think is genuinely solid.
posted by cortex (staff) at 8:28 AM on September 4, 2008
But we shouldn't have to resort to seeing good post after good post deleted until some arbitrary mod decision to let one through, or sit out ten-minute page loads, to be able to discuss things of interest to many in the community.
You don't have to worry about that. The ones that you imagine you've seen deleted so many times weren't actually good posts. Also, he just told you that a good post will in all likelihood stay up, since enough time seems to have passed that it would, in fact, be a good post. What you're really worried about is that all the crappy garbage posts that you guys put up just for the sake of discussion would get deleted. And if I'm reading cortex correctly, yes, those will still be deleted. But a good post? no.
posted by shmegegge at 8:30 AM on September 4, 2008
You don't have to worry about that. The ones that you imagine you've seen deleted so many times weren't actually good posts. Also, he just told you that a good post will in all likelihood stay up, since enough time seems to have passed that it would, in fact, be a good post. What you're really worried about is that all the crappy garbage posts that you guys put up just for the sake of discussion would get deleted. And if I'm reading cortex correctly, yes, those will still be deleted. But a good post? no.
posted by shmegegge at 8:30 AM on September 4, 2008
But forcing the most involved commenters into a ghetto of a crowded over-long barely-loadable thread just so that Matt can keep the horror of political opinion off the public marquee is a slap in the face.
Forcing! Ghetto! Slap in the face! Horror! Wow, man. I'm inspired now.
*tackles Alexis Carrington, falls into swimming pool*
posted by Skot at 8:30 AM on September 4, 2008 [2 favorites]
Forcing! Ghetto! Slap in the face! Horror! Wow, man. I'm inspired now.
*tackles Alexis Carrington, falls into swimming pool*
posted by Skot at 8:30 AM on September 4, 2008 [2 favorites]
Everything's a fuckin' travesty with you, Walter.
posted by Dave Faris at 8:36 AM on September 4, 2008
posted by Dave Faris at 8:36 AM on September 4, 2008
But no one wants to spend the time and effort to try to achieve what you'll judge a "good post", because the perception is that you'll delete a post even if it's good, just because it's about Palin.
This perception exists because Matt candidly admitted, when asked for a faster loading Palin thread, that he preferred to restrict discussion to the one thread, even though that inconvenienced people. In the face of that, who's going to make the effort to post a new, "acceptable" thread?
I'm finding your gotcha! a little thin. "Endless evolving chatter on a topic" isn't facilitated -- this isn't news.
Perception is, by definition, not indicative of an objective, universally-held thought. If it is your perception that well-crafted FPPs are being deleted for superficial reasons, fine. As for being "the perception..." -- no, it's not "THE" anything. Anyway, isn't there already an open MeTa discussing your perceptions on this topic?
posted by desuetude at 8:47 AM on September 4, 2008
This perception exists because Matt candidly admitted, when asked for a faster loading Palin thread, that he preferred to restrict discussion to the one thread, even though that inconvenienced people. In the face of that, who's going to make the effort to post a new, "acceptable" thread?
I'm finding your gotcha! a little thin. "Endless evolving chatter on a topic" isn't facilitated -- this isn't news.
Perception is, by definition, not indicative of an objective, universally-held thought. If it is your perception that well-crafted FPPs are being deleted for superficial reasons, fine. As for being "the perception..." -- no, it's not "THE" anything. Anyway, isn't there already an open MeTa discussing your perceptions on this topic?
posted by desuetude at 8:47 AM on September 4, 2008
*tackles Alexis Carrington, falls into swimming pool*
I don't care what the mods say, I think all of Metafilter can come together as one and get behind a thread about Joan Collins.
posted by Blazecock Pileon at 9:28 AM on September 4, 2008 [1 favorite]
I don't care what the mods say, I think all of Metafilter can come together as one and get behind a thread about Joan Collins.
posted by Blazecock Pileon at 9:28 AM on September 4, 2008 [1 favorite]
I don't see anything in deleted threads so maybe someone should just try it - Links to Youtube, Transcript, Reaction and Rebutal ought to do it.
posted by Artw at 9:54 AM on September 4, 2008
posted by Artw at 9:54 AM on September 4, 2008
I think it's a little late now. All the reaction is in that other thread. The post should probably wait for when she sits down for the media and America and answers the substantive and legitimate questions about the lies and inconsistencies pointed out in her speech and in her conduct. I'm sure that'll happen any minute now.
posted by cashman at 9:57 AM on September 4, 2008
posted by cashman at 9:57 AM on September 4, 2008
Stop whining. (Not mine, and I'm not loading the whole thread on this anemic machine to figure out whose it is, sorry)
posted by Skorgu at 9:58 AM on September 4, 2008
posted by Skorgu at 9:58 AM on September 4, 2008
Stop whining. (Not mine, and I'm not loading the whole thread on this anemic machine to figure out whose it is, sorry)
OK, that was pretty cool.
posted by Cool Papa Bell at 10:19 AM on September 4, 2008
OK, that was pretty cool.
posted by Cool Papa Bell at 10:19 AM on September 4, 2008
It would be nice if we could rise above the level of discourse in that thread and others like it so that they didn't ever end up being 3000 comment behemoths full of people talking past one another. The last thing we need to do is create more threads for people to gangbang on Konolia.
posted by Dave Faris at 10:21 AM on September 4, 2008
posted by Dave Faris at 10:21 AM on September 4, 2008
Ignoring your totally gross metaphor... many people have thanked konolia for her contributions in that thread. I feel like that thread has had a lot of useful back and forth discussion among many sets of people with differening opinions.
konolia always has the option to dial back her rhetoric [as does everyone here] and not claim to speak for god/republicans/southerners/anti-obama people/pro-lifers and at least sometimes chooses not to. My personal opinion is that people aren't reacting to her politics almost at all, they're reacting to her smugness combined with her seeming lack of understanding of certain issues. She's been here long enough to understand the reactions that her statements are likely to make. We've deleted the out and out ad hominems against her when we've seen them.
I don't really get what she gets out of the swimming upstream aspect of political discussions on MeFi but I also certainly don't see her as a victim of them either.
posted by jessamyn (staff) at 10:48 AM on September 4, 2008 [4 favorites]
konolia always has the option to dial back her rhetoric [as does everyone here] and not claim to speak for god/republicans/southerners/anti-obama people/pro-lifers and at least sometimes chooses not to. My personal opinion is that people aren't reacting to her politics almost at all, they're reacting to her smugness combined with her seeming lack of understanding of certain issues. She's been here long enough to understand the reactions that her statements are likely to make. We've deleted the out and out ad hominems against her when we've seen them.
I don't really get what she gets out of the swimming upstream aspect of political discussions on MeFi but I also certainly don't see her as a victim of them either.
posted by jessamyn (staff) at 10:48 AM on September 4, 2008 [4 favorites]
But forcing the most involved commenters into a ghetto of a crowded over-long barely-loadable thread just so that Matt can keep the horror of political opinion off the public marquee is a slap in the face.
As the snark flies...
On a blue and gray MeFi mornin'
A poor little eff pee pee is born
In the ghetto (In the ghettoooo)
And its poster cries
'cause if there's one thing mods don't need
it's another lame and shitty post to delete
In the ghetto (In the ghettoooo)
Morans, don't you understand
the post needs a helping hand
or it's poster will be an angry young man today
Take a look at the public marquee,
are you too blind to see
Or do you simply shake your heads
and hit the eff five key
Well the page reloads...
And money-hungry mods with no ethos
Delete weak NewFilter 'cause it makes them dough
So sez matteo (So sez matteoooo)
And his hunger burns...
So he becomes one disgruntled MeFite
and with all due respect
he picks a fight
In the ghetto
Then one night in desperation
a young man breaks away
He makes a post, its slant unhid,
tries to play coy, but we see what he did
And his Contacts cry...
As a crowd gathers 'round a scruffy young man
Gets slapped in the face with a money-makin' hand
Thus spake ortho (Thus spake orthoooo)
As his young post dies...
On a blue and gray MeFi mornin'
A poor little eff pee pee is born
In the ghetto (In the ghettoooo)
And its poster cries...
posted by Alvy Ampersand at 11:52 AM on September 4, 2008
As the snark flies...
On a blue and gray MeFi mornin'
A poor little eff pee pee is born
In the ghetto (In the ghettoooo)
And its poster cries
'cause if there's one thing mods don't need
it's another lame and shitty post to delete
In the ghetto (In the ghettoooo)
Morans, don't you understand
the post needs a helping hand
or it's poster will be an angry young man today
Take a look at the public marquee,
are you too blind to see
Or do you simply shake your heads
and hit the eff five key
Well the page reloads...
And money-hungry mods with no ethos
Delete weak NewFilter 'cause it makes them dough
So sez matteo (So sez matteoooo)
And his hunger burns...
So he becomes one disgruntled MeFite
and with all due respect
he picks a fight
In the ghetto
Then one night in desperation
a young man breaks away
He makes a post, its slant unhid,
tries to play coy, but we see what he did
And his Contacts cry...
As a crowd gathers 'round a scruffy young man
Gets slapped in the face with a money-makin' hand
Thus spake ortho (Thus spake orthoooo)
As his young post dies...
On a blue and gray MeFi mornin'
A poor little eff pee pee is born
In the ghetto (In the ghettoooo)
And its poster cries...
posted by Alvy Ampersand at 11:52 AM on September 4, 2008
gangbang on Konolia
Wow. I have my disagreements with her, but that's just a bit beyond the mark, I think.
posted by Blazecock Pileon at 11:54 AM on September 4, 2008
Wow. I have my disagreements with her, but that's just a bit beyond the mark, I think.
posted by Blazecock Pileon at 11:54 AM on September 4, 2008
We're respectable enough to Digg up content if we Reddit, but apparently too scruffy and off-putting to have our politics visible more than once a month.
What are we not promoting here? Political threads? We do one a month
Some U.S. political threads from the last month:
http://www.metafilter.com/74563/ScienceDebate2008-Update
http://www.metafilter.com/74542/Final-Days
http://www.metafilter.com/74527/Minnesota-nice
http://www.metafilter.com/74487/Sarah-Palin-as-McCains-runningmate
http://www.metafilter.com/74484/An-outlaw-view-of-the-underbelly-of-the-beast-during-the-2008-Democratic-National-Convention
http://www.metafilter.com/74476/A-Speech-So-Stirring-It-Converted-Pat-Buchanan
http://www.metafilter.com/74470/ABC-reporter-arrested-in-Denver
http://www.metafilter.com/74446/Obama-nominated-by-acclimation-after-all
http://www.metafilter.com/74380/Moving-maps-of-American-elections
http://www.metafilter.com/74339/Biden-Wins-Veepstakes
http://www.metafilter.com/74318/US-Presidential-Campaign-Videos
http://www.metafilter.com/74287/Pastor-Ricks-Test
http://www.metafilter.com/73969/The-Kid-Is-Not-My-Daughter
http://www.metafilter.com/73880/Paris-Hot-McCainOld-Guy
posted by timeistight at 11:54 AM on September 4, 2008 [3 favorites]
What are we not promoting here? Political threads? We do one a month
Some U.S. political threads from the last month:
http://www.metafilter.com/74563/ScienceDebate2008-Update
http://www.metafilter.com/74542/Final-Days
http://www.metafilter.com/74527/Minnesota-nice
http://www.metafilter.com/74487/Sarah-Palin-as-McCains-runningmate
http://www.metafilter.com/74484/An-outlaw-view-of-the-underbelly-of-the-beast-during-the-2008-Democratic-National-Convention
http://www.metafilter.com/74476/A-Speech-So-Stirring-It-Converted-Pat-Buchanan
http://www.metafilter.com/74470/ABC-reporter-arrested-in-Denver
http://www.metafilter.com/74446/Obama-nominated-by-acclimation-after-all
http://www.metafilter.com/74380/Moving-maps-of-American-elections
http://www.metafilter.com/74339/Biden-Wins-Veepstakes
http://www.metafilter.com/74318/US-Presidential-Campaign-Videos
http://www.metafilter.com/74287/Pastor-Ricks-Test
http://www.metafilter.com/73969/The-Kid-Is-Not-My-Daughter
http://www.metafilter.com/73880/Paris-Hot-McCainOld-Guy
posted by timeistight at 11:54 AM on September 4, 2008 [3 favorites]
that's just a bit beyond the mark, I think.
Yeah. I didn't mean it that way, seriously. Poor choice of words, when "ganging up" was what I really meant.
posted by Dave Faris at 11:58 AM on September 4, 2008
Yeah. I didn't mean it that way, seriously. Poor choice of words, when "ganging up" was what I really meant.
posted by Dave Faris at 11:58 AM on September 4, 2008
We're respectable enough to Digg up content if we Reddit, but apparently too scruffy and off-putting to have our politics visible more than once a month.
Dude, you give yourself waaay too much credit, politics-wise.
If he didn't happen to be on the same side as you in this little donnybrook, matteo would probably be first in line to ridicule you for thinking your banal American political slant could possibly be mistaken for anything resembling scruffy or off-putting.
posted by Alvy Ampersand at 12:02 PM on September 4, 2008
Dude, you give yourself waaay too much credit, politics-wise.
If he didn't happen to be on the same side as you in this little donnybrook, matteo would probably be first in line to ridicule you for thinking your banal American political slant could possibly be mistaken for anything resembling scruffy or off-putting.
posted by Alvy Ampersand at 12:02 PM on September 4, 2008
I have no idea what people are going on about here. All I would like is a "Part II" of the Palin thread so that I can load it faster than three minutes at a time. It's obviously still got interest going in it, people are still commenting and sharing links, and it would be a shame for it to die simply because people can't load it properly any more. Is that totally verbotten to request? It seems fairly simple to me, since it doesn't happen hardly ever.
posted by agregoli at 12:06 PM on September 4, 2008
posted by agregoli at 12:06 PM on September 4, 2008
(cortex told me they won't be opening a new thread. Sigh.)
posted by agregoli at 12:11 PM on September 4, 2008
posted by agregoli at 12:11 PM on September 4, 2008
cortex told me they won't be opening a new thread. Sigh.
I don't even understand this. "We" the mods aren't opening a new thread because that's just not how MeFi works. If someone comes along and decides to make a decent Palin/politics/RNC post that is topical, not heavy-handed, and not some tongue-in-cheek inside baseball nonsense, I think it would be great to do. We've said as much in this thread.
posted by jessamyn (staff) at 12:19 PM on September 4, 2008
I don't even understand this. "We" the mods aren't opening a new thread because that's just not how MeFi works. If someone comes along and decides to make a decent Palin/politics/RNC post that is topical, not heavy-handed, and not some tongue-in-cheek inside baseball nonsense, I think it would be great to do. We've said as much in this thread.
posted by jessamyn (staff) at 12:19 PM on September 4, 2008
Not only "gross," by the way. Unnecessarily offensive metaphor, methinks.
Just sayin'.
posted by koeselitz at 12:40 PM on September 4, 2008
Just sayin'.
posted by koeselitz at 12:40 PM on September 4, 2008
And acknowledged as unintentionally so. Let's not dwell on it.
posted by cortex (staff) at 12:41 PM on September 4, 2008
posted by cortex (staff) at 12:41 PM on September 4, 2008
I'm sorry, jessaymn, I'm not trying to be whiny here, but "it's not how mefi works" doesn't make sense to me, honestly. The thread, because of intense interest! is dying, and the only solution is to try to create a second thread that won't get axed? The thread becomes barely functional because of too many comments and it's a problem to let it continue working?
Look, I respect your decisions, or policy, or whatever it is, and was only inquiring because many people have brought it up and I didn't see a firm answer. I guess you guys are getting hammered with this question because I'm feeling some defensiveness I didn't expect. I got my answer, I'm satisfied with it, just think it's a shame, because I'm doubtful another "passable" thread is going to be started. I know I'm too shy to try to not get a new one axed.
posted by agregoli at 12:59 PM on September 4, 2008
Look, I respect your decisions, or policy, or whatever it is, and was only inquiring because many people have brought it up and I didn't see a firm answer. I guess you guys are getting hammered with this question because I'm feeling some defensiveness I didn't expect. I got my answer, I'm satisfied with it, just think it's a shame, because I'm doubtful another "passable" thread is going to be started. I know I'm too shy to try to not get a new one axed.
posted by agregoli at 12:59 PM on September 4, 2008
Can one of you sons of bitches conjure up some egregious but completely false drama that results in a wild orgy of shocking revelations and sockpuppet bannings? So that as a community, we can transform our petty scuffles into healing, outwardly-focused, self-policing hysteria, collapse into a sweaty heap and ride a chatty longboat into the sunset? Because my nambypambyism filter is fucking clogged.
My contribution will be a sockpuppet named "shmatteo". He will accuse Matt of being a censorious, moneygrubbing GOP operative. Okay-----GO!
posted by kosem at 1:26 PM on September 4, 2008 [4 favorites]
My contribution will be a sockpuppet named "shmatteo". He will accuse Matt of being a censorious, moneygrubbing GOP operative. Okay-----GO!
posted by kosem at 1:26 PM on September 4, 2008 [4 favorites]
I actually like the whole "one long thread" thing. It does, however, take over one second for a character to appear in the reply box after I type it, which makes for slow, deliberate responses.
(or replies typed in Notepad and pasted in).
I invite Dave Faris to share with me where on the Internet I can find a higher level of discourse with a similar level of activity than that thread. Are the conversations more civil and intelligent at Something Awful? Fark? Does Little Green Footballs have a nuanced and genteel discussion of this issue that I'm missing out on?
posted by Shepherd at 1:34 PM on September 4, 2008
(or replies typed in Notepad and pasted in).
I invite Dave Faris to share with me where on the Internet I can find a higher level of discourse with a similar level of activity than that thread. Are the conversations more civil and intelligent at Something Awful? Fark? Does Little Green Footballs have a nuanced and genteel discussion of this issue that I'm missing out on?
posted by Shepherd at 1:34 PM on September 4, 2008
WE DON'T WANT MORE PLAIN SHIT AROUND HERE UNDERSTAND?
Damn right. We only want the best shit.
posted by homunculus at 1:39 PM on September 4, 2008
Damn right. We only want the best shit.
posted by homunculus at 1:39 PM on September 4, 2008
agregoli, I'm sorry I was confused; I just didn't know where the "cortex told me..." aside came from. Did you talk to him?
As it stands with the way the site operates there is no way to say "hey here's thread part two, go here to continue discussion..." Something would have to be built specially to do that. We've said many times why this isn't something we're interested in building. At the end of the day really it's only mathowie and pb who could build this, cortex and I mostly stick to admin stuff. There are a few ways to read the thread where you don't have to reload the entire thing -- recent activity, whatever that thing was that someone pointed to upthread, etc -- so while I know this is a problem it's also not that the thread is dead in any real way.
I don't see it as a stretch that another thread gets started by someone interested in talking about all the recent Palin/RNC/politics stuff.
on preview: ND¢ you are a fucker.
posted by jessamyn (staff) at 1:39 PM on September 4, 2008 [3 favorites]
As it stands with the way the site operates there is no way to say "hey here's thread part two, go here to continue discussion..." Something would have to be built specially to do that. We've said many times why this isn't something we're interested in building. At the end of the day really it's only mathowie and pb who could build this, cortex and I mostly stick to admin stuff. There are a few ways to read the thread where you don't have to reload the entire thing -- recent activity, whatever that thing was that someone pointed to upthread, etc -- so while I know this is a problem it's also not that the thread is dead in any real way.
I don't see it as a stretch that another thread gets started by someone interested in talking about all the recent Palin/RNC/politics stuff.
on preview: ND¢ you are a fucker.
posted by jessamyn (staff) at 1:39 PM on September 4, 2008 [3 favorites]
ND¢, I think I love you.
posted by Brandon Blatcher at 1:40 PM on September 4, 2008
posted by Brandon Blatcher at 1:40 PM on September 4, 2008
ND¢ - I added the extra tag. If you want it taken off that's fine with me.
posted by yhbc at 1:45 PM on September 4, 2008
posted by yhbc at 1:45 PM on September 4, 2008
I invite Dave Faris to share with me where on the Internet I can find a higher level of discourse with a similar level of activity than that thread.
Just because it doesn't exist elsewhere doesn't mean that it wouldn't be nice if we could aspire to and achieve something better than a diuretic knee-jerk echo chamber, something so ponderous that people are complaining about the burden of slogging through it here.
posted by Dave Faris at 1:48 PM on September 4, 2008
Just because it doesn't exist elsewhere doesn't mean that it wouldn't be nice if we could aspire to and achieve something better than a diuretic knee-jerk echo chamber, something so ponderous that people are complaining about the burden of slogging through it here.
posted by Dave Faris at 1:48 PM on September 4, 2008
Happy now?
Once I finish strangling you, yes.
posted by cortex (staff) at 1:57 PM on September 4, 2008 [4 favorites]
Once I finish strangling you, yes.
posted by cortex (staff) at 1:57 PM on September 4, 2008 [4 favorites]
That thread isn't about politics. It's been threadjacked into a debate on abortion rights between konolia and everyone else. If you removed all that noise the thread would be a lot smaller.
posted by RussHy at 2:00 PM on September 4, 2008 [2 favorites]
posted by RussHy at 2:00 PM on September 4, 2008 [2 favorites]
Hey, I'm done over there.
Gotta go get ready to go to a Republican meeting tonight. Sigh...
posted by konolia at 2:28 PM on September 4, 2008
Gotta go get ready to go to a Republican meeting tonight. Sigh...
posted by konolia at 2:28 PM on September 4, 2008
Oh good - I already have somewhere to make my apologies. Sorry for shouting, but I was enjoying the thread until it descended into he-said-God-said on abortion. Also, I would hope MeFites know better than to respond with slack-jawed disbelief (which must be posted) when someone holds religious beliefs that you disagree with or find illogical or both. Also, sorry for essentially trying to moderate the thread. But I wanted to keep enjoying it.
If I have a flaw it is that I loved the thread too much.
posted by GuyZero at 2:47 PM on September 4, 2008
If I have a flaw it is that I loved the thread too much.
posted by GuyZero at 2:47 PM on September 4, 2008
If I have a flaw it is that I loved the thread too much.
Yes, I also drank too deeply of the intoxicating swill. Sigh. Good times.
posted by Surfurrus at 3:22 PM on September 4, 2008
Yes, I also drank too deeply of the intoxicating swill. Sigh. Good times.
posted by Surfurrus at 3:22 PM on September 4, 2008
At the end of the day really it's only mathowie and pb who could build this, cortex and I mostly stick to admin stuff.
Let me get this straight. Jessamyn and cortex are like some sort of community organizers, and only mathowie and pb have executive experience?
I guess now I know who around here advocates change, and who just offers more of the same failed policies....
posted by billyfleetwood at 3:32 PM on September 4, 2008 [4 favorites]
Let me get this straight. Jessamyn and cortex are like some sort of community organizers, and only mathowie and pb have executive experience?
I guess now I know who around here advocates change, and who just offers more of the same failed policies....
posted by billyfleetwood at 3:32 PM on September 4, 2008 [4 favorites]
If later tonight nobody's done a decent RNC convention wrap-up that *happens to touch on Palin* without dwelling on the tawdriness, I'm happy to take a stab at it.
posted by Ryvar at 3:40 PM on September 4, 2008
posted by Ryvar at 3:40 PM on September 4, 2008
Happy now?
posted by ND¢
Yeah, it's kinda sucky to put up a stunt FPP, then have cortex scold the people who play along in the comments. Either let it go, or clean up the post.
posted by Fuzzy Skinner at 3:42 PM on September 4, 2008
posted by ND¢
Yeah, it's kinda sucky to put up a stunt FPP, then have cortex scold the people who play along in the comments. Either let it go, or clean up the post.
posted by Fuzzy Skinner at 3:42 PM on September 4, 2008
I just dropped an if-I'm-dense apology in there; there could be some deep-in-the-weeds Michael Palin/pop-culture reference that makes what was going on there a bon mot and not a random veer toward political chatter.
But the way things have been going, I'd rather be visibly and clearly saying don't, even as a grumpy hardass, then have it go further off the tracks until we do have to clean it up. And I'm having a grumpy-hardass sort of day, I'll readily acknowledge that.
posted by cortex (staff) at 3:46 PM on September 4, 2008
But the way things have been going, I'd rather be visibly and clearly saying don't, even as a grumpy hardass, then have it go further off the tracks until we do have to clean it up. And I'm having a grumpy-hardass sort of day, I'll readily acknowledge that.
posted by cortex (staff) at 3:46 PM on September 4, 2008
The thread was a lot more stunt-y before the more inside was outsided.
Ryvar, if you want someone to run it by, you know my chatmachine address.
posted by jessamyn (staff) at 3:53 PM on September 4, 2008
Ryvar, if you want someone to run it by, you know my chatmachine address.
posted by jessamyn (staff) at 3:53 PM on September 4, 2008
Just because it doesn't exist elsewhere doesn't mean that it wouldn't be nice if we could aspire to and achieve something better than a diuretic knee-jerk echo chamber
So let me see if I have the sequence of events straight:
1. A large number of highly intelligent people discuss a recent nominee to the vice-presidency, on a Web site where all are welcome to contribute after they pay a nominal fee, all of whom are free to comment at will and at length, with moderation only in the most flagrant cases of abuse.
2. As the conversation evolves, the evidence for this vice-presidential candidate being a poor choice mounts. Various people attempt to mount defenses for the vice-presidential candidate, but nobody seems to be able to present a compelling, reasonable, intelligent case for why this person is anything other than a flaming disaster on oil-greased wheels.
3. Other than one very persistent poster who is focused on a single issue to the exclusion of all others, and feels that the constant and incessant repetition of said issue trumps all other argument, the conversation generally seems to reach consensus: this person is not the best option for vice-president of the United States.
4. By the measure of quality conversation established by the Harvard Debate Team in 1922, also known as the "People Who Agree Wholeheartedly With Dave Faris" Standard, this conversation is a dismal failure.
I understand this must be a terrible disappointment to you.
You may feel a certain weight as you progress through life, and find that when highly intelligent people gather to discuss the issues of the day, their discourse will often fall below the lofty ideals set by the "People Who Agree Wholeheartedly With Dave Faris" Standard.
The good news, of course, is that you are guaranteed to raise the quality of any conversation you participate in!
So chin up! You are a lone conversation-elevator, fighting a lonely war to raise the standard of conversation not here, but everywhere. All the time. 24/7.
It's quite a responsibility, but I'm sure you'll shoulder it bravely.
posted by Shepherd at 4:02 PM on September 4, 2008 [2 favorites]
So let me see if I have the sequence of events straight:
1. A large number of highly intelligent people discuss a recent nominee to the vice-presidency, on a Web site where all are welcome to contribute after they pay a nominal fee, all of whom are free to comment at will and at length, with moderation only in the most flagrant cases of abuse.
2. As the conversation evolves, the evidence for this vice-presidential candidate being a poor choice mounts. Various people attempt to mount defenses for the vice-presidential candidate, but nobody seems to be able to present a compelling, reasonable, intelligent case for why this person is anything other than a flaming disaster on oil-greased wheels.
3. Other than one very persistent poster who is focused on a single issue to the exclusion of all others, and feels that the constant and incessant repetition of said issue trumps all other argument, the conversation generally seems to reach consensus: this person is not the best option for vice-president of the United States.
4. By the measure of quality conversation established by the Harvard Debate Team in 1922, also known as the "People Who Agree Wholeheartedly With Dave Faris" Standard, this conversation is a dismal failure.
I understand this must be a terrible disappointment to you.
You may feel a certain weight as you progress through life, and find that when highly intelligent people gather to discuss the issues of the day, their discourse will often fall below the lofty ideals set by the "People Who Agree Wholeheartedly With Dave Faris" Standard.
The good news, of course, is that you are guaranteed to raise the quality of any conversation you participate in!
So chin up! You are a lone conversation-elevator, fighting a lonely war to raise the standard of conversation not here, but everywhere. All the time. 24/7.
It's quite a responsibility, but I'm sure you'll shoulder it bravely.
posted by Shepherd at 4:02 PM on September 4, 2008 [2 favorites]
Isn't there some kind of People Who Agree Wholeheartedly With Dave Faris website?
posted by Artw at 4:04 PM on September 4, 2008
posted by Artw at 4:04 PM on September 4, 2008
Isn't there some kind of People Who Agree Wholeheartedly With Dave Faris website?
Yeah. http://127.0.0.1/
OH SNAP!
posted by Ryvar at 4:19 PM on September 4, 2008 [1 favorite]
Yeah. http://127.0.0.1/
OH SNAP!
posted by Ryvar at 4:19 PM on September 4, 2008 [1 favorite]
FWIW, the thread loads just fine in firefox 2-someodd on my ultra-low power consumption PC. It's running a lightweight linux distribution, though - for the fastest possible web experience, I highly recommend dumping Windows.
posted by kaibutsu at 4:42 PM on September 4, 2008
posted by kaibutsu at 4:42 PM on September 4, 2008
(Not to, you know, start another argument on a volatile position that some people feel more strongly about than abortion.)
posted by kaibutsu at 4:44 PM on September 4, 2008
posted by kaibutsu at 4:44 PM on September 4, 2008
So I guess orthogonality should be allowed to post his thread now?
posted by Blazecock Pileon at 5:36 PM on September 4, 2008
posted by Blazecock Pileon at 5:36 PM on September 4, 2008
The non-usability of that Palin thread is like a civil war of attrition between the site and it's members
posted by Rumple at 7:15 PM on September 4, 2008 [1 favorite]
posted by Rumple at 7:15 PM on September 4, 2008 [1 favorite]
orthogonality writes "We're respectable enough to Digg up content if we Reddit, but apparently too scruffy and off-putting to have our politics visible more than once a month."
The chance Metafilter goes even two weeks without a politics thread is essentially nil. I'd bet jessamyn changes her name way before that happens. US politics alone seem to average a post every few days.
posted by Mitheral at 8:11 PM on September 4, 2008 [1 favorite]
The chance Metafilter goes even two weeks without a politics thread is essentially nil. I'd bet jessamyn changes her name way before that happens. US politics alone seem to average a post every few days.
posted by Mitheral at 8:11 PM on September 4, 2008 [1 favorite]
It's quite a responsibility, but I'm sure you'll shoulder it bravely.
Yeah, maybe you're right. How could anyone possibly agree with a desire to try to make this place better than it is? What the hell was I thinking?
posted by Dave Faris at 8:53 PM on September 4, 2008
Yeah, maybe you're right. How could anyone possibly agree with a desire to try to make this place better than it is? What the hell was I thinking?
posted by Dave Faris at 8:53 PM on September 4, 2008
Got home at quarter of 11 last night (yay game industry), fell asleep watching Palin's speech (lulz). 14 hour workday today (yay game industry) - someone else want to take a stab at it?
posted by Ryvar at 6:28 AM on September 5, 2008
posted by Ryvar at 6:28 AM on September 5, 2008
Ok, someone else brought it up so I didn't have to. That mefi-tail page with the last 100 comments is brought to you by cillit bang (warning comment in giant Palin thread).
posted by Skorgu at 8:56 AM on September 5, 2008
posted by Skorgu at 8:56 AM on September 5, 2008
I guess the win in cb's thing there is reducing the rendering burden on the browser?
posted by cortex (staff) at 9:06 AM on September 5, 2008
posted by cortex (staff) at 9:06 AM on September 5, 2008
That thread would have been a lot better with pictures.
posted by QIbHom at 11:41 AM on September 5, 2008
posted by QIbHom at 11:41 AM on September 5, 2008
cortex: as of ten seconds ago: 99K vs 3.2M, no that's not a typo.
posted by Skorgu at 1:30 PM on September 5, 2008
posted by Skorgu at 1:30 PM on September 5, 2008
Yeah, no, I believe it. It's the contrast between render savings and bandwidth savings that I'm thinking about: I'm not sure how cb's script would manage to prevent the need to suck the whole thread over the pipe, even if it does save some render pain by reducing what gets chucked out into the browser window ultimately. But I might be missing something?
Anyway, I think it's a neat hack.
posted by cortex (staff) at 1:49 PM on September 5, 2008
Anyway, I think it's a neat hack.
posted by cortex (staff) at 1:49 PM on September 5, 2008
It's a server-side PHP script, he pulls the whole thread once every 10 minutes, trims it and only serves the last 100 comments as flat text, no client-side mojo at all. This is all from the text on the page and observing it behave, I have no inside info.
I'm now sorely tempted to ask him for the source and write up an API wrapper to grab any given range of posts...
posted by Skorgu at 2:42 PM on September 5, 2008
I'm now sorely tempted to ask him for the source and write up an API wrapper to grab any given range of posts...
posted by Skorgu at 2:42 PM on September 5, 2008
Oh! That's clever, though I suppose the need for a server-side cache would make it not so great as e.g. a generalized greasemonkey script.
posted by cortex (staff) at 2:50 PM on September 5, 2008
posted by cortex (staff) at 2:50 PM on September 5, 2008
cortex - maybe you have some special extra-wide tube to the heart of metafilter or something, but cillit bang's page is great precisely because that thread takes forever to download straight from mefi for the rest of us, and cb's small page cuts down on the download time and subsequent rendering time. As I understand it, a greasemonkey script would still require the complete download plus subsequent rendering (and if mefi navigator is anything to go by, a bottleneck in its own right; also, not everyone runs FF).
That is why, I believe, so many members are asking for some kind of special-case pagination. I get that we can't always have nice things, but if, for example, one page on the whole site can be rendered in comic sans, then surely one page can be rendered in pagination.
posted by Rumple at 3:01 PM on September 5, 2008
That is why, I believe, so many members are asking for some kind of special-case pagination. I get that we can't always have nice things, but if, for example, one page on the whole site can be rendered in comic sans, then surely one page can be rendered in pagination.
posted by Rumple at 3:01 PM on September 5, 2008
The thread's a pretty solid chugger for me too at this point, actually—I have no special pipe, and in fact the internet at my dayjob consistently sucks.
I've been following it through Recent Activity mostly and loading the page proper when I'd missed more than ten comments or I had a comment to make myself. It's a minor pain in the ass, but, again, these threads are rare, rare monsters and for all the suboptimal performance of the thread it has continued to tick along at a hell of a pace.
There's a couple of differences between rendering a thread in comic sans as a joke and adding pagination to the site as a feature.
Engineering is one of them—pagination is hardly rocket science, but Mefi is built from scratch in CF, not working out of the box off a modern CMS, so we're talking about implementing pagination by hand with all the testing and headache that goes with it. That's considerably more involved than throwing a conditional <style> directive into a single thread's CSS.
Precedent and desirability is the other difference. The comic sans thread was a one-time joke—nobody is expecting Matt to render other threads in custom fonts on demand because of that incident. I think that's pretty clearly understood, and in fact if we were worried that it wouldn't have been so, I doubt he would have done it. Whereas pagination is something we're really not wanting to make a part of the mefi experience; and going to the effort of doing it Just This One Time is setting us up for the next Just This One Time and the next in a way that contradicts that very desire not to do this with mefi threads.
I get that people would like the thread to be less of a hassle to deal with, but that's really I think as far as it goes—a once-in-a-blue-moon thread, a clearly-not-showstopping hassle for a whole bunch of people who've managed to participate regardless—and that doesn't seem like a compelling argument to do a bunch of work implementing a feature we don't even want to support.
posted by cortex (staff) at 3:14 PM on September 5, 2008
I've been following it through Recent Activity mostly and loading the page proper when I'd missed more than ten comments or I had a comment to make myself. It's a minor pain in the ass, but, again, these threads are rare, rare monsters and for all the suboptimal performance of the thread it has continued to tick along at a hell of a pace.
There's a couple of differences between rendering a thread in comic sans as a joke and adding pagination to the site as a feature.
Engineering is one of them—pagination is hardly rocket science, but Mefi is built from scratch in CF, not working out of the box off a modern CMS, so we're talking about implementing pagination by hand with all the testing and headache that goes with it. That's considerably more involved than throwing a conditional <style> directive into a single thread's CSS.
Precedent and desirability is the other difference. The comic sans thread was a one-time joke—nobody is expecting Matt to render other threads in custom fonts on demand because of that incident. I think that's pretty clearly understood, and in fact if we were worried that it wouldn't have been so, I doubt he would have done it. Whereas pagination is something we're really not wanting to make a part of the mefi experience; and going to the effort of doing it Just This One Time is setting us up for the next Just This One Time and the next in a way that contradicts that very desire not to do this with mefi threads.
I get that people would like the thread to be less of a hassle to deal with, but that's really I think as far as it goes—a once-in-a-blue-moon thread, a clearly-not-showstopping hassle for a whole bunch of people who've managed to participate regardless—and that doesn't seem like a compelling argument to do a bunch of work implementing a feature we don't even want to support.
posted by cortex (staff) at 3:14 PM on September 5, 2008
And I don't mean to wave off the people for whom really terrible internet service or a badly aging computer has made the thread not just a pain but functionally inaccessible. That sucks, and I understand the idea of arguing for pagination to get them back over the threshold to accessibility, even if I (see above) don't like the idea for MeFi and don't expect we'll pursue it.
But the same can be said for YouTube posts, or flash games/apps; java-driven apps, PDFs, platform specific executables and web services. And while I understand that those external-content aspects are explicitly beyond our control while threads here aren't, it also needs to be acknowledged that all of those other things are very common, even daily, occurances in the normal mefi experience, which is not something that can be said about 2000+ comment threads.
posted by cortex (staff) at 3:21 PM on September 5, 2008
But the same can be said for YouTube posts, or flash games/apps; java-driven apps, PDFs, platform specific executables and web services. And while I understand that those external-content aspects are explicitly beyond our control while threads here aren't, it also needs to be acknowledged that all of those other things are very common, even daily, occurances in the normal mefi experience, which is not something that can be said about 2000+ comment threads.
posted by cortex (staff) at 3:21 PM on September 5, 2008
I think it's really silly that the best solution I found here was to comment in a loooong thread, thereby adding to the problem, just so I could read it in Recent Activity.
posted by iamkimiam at 5:31 PM on September 5, 2008
posted by iamkimiam at 5:31 PM on September 5, 2008
Also, if we're not going to do a pagination, then why can't we add a feed option, a "add to recent activity option" or an alternative viewing option (like MobileMefi)?
posted by iamkimiam at 5:32 PM on September 5, 2008
posted by iamkimiam at 5:32 PM on September 5, 2008
An alternative viewing option would be fantastic, if not for the sole purpose of being able to link to a comment in THAT, rather than the to the actual SLPT*—I know I'm just going to loathe it every time I get tricked into loading that beast...the ultimate rickroll.
*Staggeringly Long Palin Thread
posted by iamkimiam at 5:38 PM on September 5, 2008
*Staggeringly Long Palin Thread
posted by iamkimiam at 5:38 PM on September 5, 2008
You can add to recent activity without commenting, actually. Favorite the thread, hit the Recent Activity link in the header like normal, and click on the My Favorites tab. That should land you right here, et voila—no need to add a throwaway comment if you've don't have something to add but want to follow anyway.
As far as feeds, there are per-thread rss feeds but it seems like very long threads might be freaking out (some? all?) readers. If we can find an easy way to make that not happen, we'd be happy to do so, but I'm not sure if it's been IDed as a mefi feed-generation or -serving problem vs. a reader-specific problem or what.
posted by cortex (staff) at 5:38 PM on September 5, 2008 [1 favorite]
As far as feeds, there are per-thread rss feeds but it seems like very long threads might be freaking out (some? all?) readers. If we can find an easy way to make that not happen, we'd be happy to do so, but I'm not sure if it's been IDed as a mefi feed-generation or -serving problem vs. a reader-specific problem or what.
posted by cortex (staff) at 5:38 PM on September 5, 2008 [1 favorite]
HOLY CRAP! To think of all the veiled noise I've been adding to threads this whole time! Thanks Cortex!
posted by iamkimiam at 5:52 PM on September 5, 2008
posted by iamkimiam at 5:52 PM on September 5, 2008
I don't know if this is the place for this, but has anyone noticed that XQUZYPHYR's comment in the Palin thread is leaking favorites at an alarming rate on the Popular Page? Actual number of favorites that comment has received: 431 and rising. Number of favorites listed on the Popular Page: 92 and falling. So weird.
posted by Powerful Religious Baby at 8:21 PM on September 5, 2008
posted by Powerful Religious Baby at 8:21 PM on September 5, 2008
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posted by empath at 7:14 PM on September 3, 2008