Unexpected Contribution November 23, 2008 4:11 PM Subscribe
As I made some final revisions and edits to my most recent metafilter post, I came across something peculiar. I took a screenshot to explain. When I hovered my mouse over the letter I from the word 'In' at the very start of my post, it offered a link to this page (see the link circled at the bottom of the picture), even though I hadn't actually created a hyperlink to it. If I directly clicked the I, it would take me to the page. If I tried to open it in a new tab, it didn't work. It was still there even after a refresh. Is this happening to anyone else? I'm using Internet Explorer 7, if that helps.
Interesting. I just noticed that now that the post is up on Metafilter, the 'I' now links back to the post itself, rather than the 'contribute' page. Strange.
posted by Effigy2000 at 4:34 PM on November 23, 2008
posted by Effigy2000 at 4:34 PM on November 23, 2008
The I links to nothing in my view of the post.
posted by jessamyn (staff) at 4:49 PM on November 23, 2008
posted by jessamyn (staff) at 4:49 PM on November 23, 2008
Okay, so also? If I'm logged in, that link takes me to that "member's area" page, and if I'm not (I CAN'T BELIEVE YOU GOT ME TO LOG OUT), it takes me to a login page which then directs to Metatalk, or this thread, whichever I started at. This, to me, is internet magic. You could probably sell me something right now.
posted by Ambrosia Voyeur at 4:50 PM on November 23, 2008 [4 favorites]
posted by Ambrosia Voyeur at 4:50 PM on November 23, 2008 [4 favorites]
borked link (e.g. <a href=""></a>) in there somehow
There is, in most posts. It looks like is you don't use the single title/link feature, the A tag for it still put in.
posted by cillit bang at 4:52 PM on November 23, 2008
There is, in most posts. It looks like is you don't use the single title/link feature, the A tag for it still put in.
posted by cillit bang at 4:52 PM on November 23, 2008
"This, to me, is internet magic. You could probably sell me something right now."
posted by Ambrosia Voyeur at 10:50 AM on November 24
It gets better, AV. If I go straight to my post from the Metafilter homepage, a mouseover of the 'I' produces this link;
http://www.metafilter.com/76814/
But if I go to the post through the link I provided in this MetaTalk thread, a mouseover produces this link;
http://www.metafilter.com/comments.mefi/76814
I don't know how I did this, but wow.
posted by Effigy2000 at 4:57 PM on November 23, 2008
posted by Ambrosia Voyeur at 10:50 AM on November 24
It gets better, AV. If I go straight to my post from the Metafilter homepage, a mouseover of the 'I' produces this link;
http://www.metafilter.com/76814/
But if I go to the post through the link I provided in this MetaTalk thread, a mouseover produces this link;
http://www.metafilter.com/comments.mefi/76814
I don't know how I did this, but wow.
posted by Effigy2000 at 4:57 PM on November 23, 2008
It's actually before the I. And I can only click it in Explorer, either because Firefox is cool, or full of greasemonkey business, I dunno.
The source says <a href=""> In a series of sixteen advertisements
posted by Ambrosia Voyeur at 4:59 PM on November 23, 2008
The source says <a href=""> In a series of sixteen advertisements
posted by Ambrosia Voyeur at 4:59 PM on November 23, 2008
Only is actually says <a href=""></a> In a series of sixteen yadda yadda. See? See my rube cred? SELL ME SOMETHING.
posted by Ambrosia Voyeur at 5:02 PM on November 23, 2008
posted by Ambrosia Voyeur at 5:02 PM on November 23, 2008
I can reproduce in IE but not in Firefox. How totally bizarre, that. Except that:
There is, in most posts. It looks like is you don't use the single title/link feature, the A tag for it still put in.
That makes it less bizarre, then, yeah: the site isn't not posting the html boilerplate for title/url, it's just posting them empty. At the front of every post, in fact, that doesn't use the title/url fields. Among those, those that don't start with a link but with descriptive text are easiest to find it on, but it's always there, a one-pixel-wide 1em strip of blank link. Heh.
Whether this is an IE feature and a Firefox bug or vice versa is left as an exercise to the reader, I guess.
posted by cortex (staff) at 5:30 PM on November 23, 2008 [1 favorite]
There is, in most posts. It looks like is you don't use the single title/link feature, the A tag for it still put in.
That makes it less bizarre, then, yeah: the site isn't not posting the html boilerplate for title/url, it's just posting them empty. At the front of every post, in fact, that doesn't use the title/url fields. Among those, those that don't start with a link but with descriptive text are easiest to find it on, but it's always there, a one-pixel-wide 1em strip of blank link. Heh.
Whether this is an IE feature and a Firefox bug or vice versa is left as an exercise to the reader, I guess.
posted by cortex (staff) at 5:30 PM on November 23, 2008 [1 favorite]
Next, carsonb'll be burning the magic wardrobe and Bill and Ted's phonebooth.
posted by Ambrosia Voyeur at 6:47 PM on November 23, 2008 [3 favorites]
posted by Ambrosia Voyeur at 6:47 PM on November 23, 2008 [3 favorites]
WE'RE THROUGH THE LOOKING GLASS HERE PEOPLE!!!!!! FASTEN YOUR SEATBELTS AND PUT YOUR TRAYS IN THE UPRIGHT LOCKED POSITION!!!!!!
posted by blue_beetle at 6:54 PM on November 23, 2008
posted by blue_beetle at 6:54 PM on November 23, 2008
MWAHAHAAAAA!
*strokes Brandon Blatcher's goatee evilly*
posted by cashman at 6:59 PM on November 23, 2008
*strokes Brandon Blatcher's goatee evilly*
posted by cashman at 6:59 PM on November 23, 2008
Would you two please stop stroking each other?
posted by Effigy2000 at 7:21 PM on November 23, 2008
posted by Effigy2000 at 7:21 PM on November 23, 2008
Ambrosia Voyeur, just for today, Rock Steady Industries is prepared to offer you a full set of the magic words that Internet Millionaires like Bill Gates, Steve Jobs, and the Google Guys use to build their fortunes. Se if you just type EBAY on the Internet, it does nothing. But if you use our magic words or "tags" you can make it do this: EBAY. Now you can make people go to Ebay and buy your stuff. If you add another magic "tag" you can do this: and increase your revenue immeasurably. If you act now, we will include a copy of powerful Internet software "Netscape Navigator 4" ABSOLUTELY FREE! Act now! Call 800-BUY-HTML in the next 20 minutes, and well not $100 off your purchase price!
posted by Rock Steady at 7:34 PM on November 23, 2008 [2 favorites]
posted by Rock Steady at 7:34 PM on November 23, 2008 [2 favorites]
and well not we'll knock $100 off your purchase price!
See what I did there! Magic!
posted by Rock Steady at 7:36 PM on November 23, 2008
See what I did there! Magic!
posted by Rock Steady at 7:36 PM on November 23, 2008
... and even throw in instructions on how to make an anchor tag just for signing up.
posted by netbros at 7:37 PM on November 23, 2008
posted by netbros at 7:37 PM on November 23, 2008
Aaaand I borked my links in my enthusiasm for posting a stupid joke. Cortex, a little help for comedy's sake? Make those links go to ebay.com, will ya huh? For the sake of comedy?
posted by Rock Steady at 7:37 PM on November 23, 2008
posted by Rock Steady at 7:37 PM on November 23, 2008
Mod note: ftfy. cortex is not the only one who knows HTML, fwiw.
posted by jessamyn (staff) at 7:42 PM on November 23, 2008 [2 favorites]
posted by jessamyn (staff) at 7:42 PM on November 23, 2008 [2 favorites]
jessamyn rocks, and she hereby gets a free order of Internet Magic. The only reason I appealed to cortex was because I knew he had been following the thread, and I thought he would be more susceptible to my appeal to the comedy gods. You know you've always been my favorite mod, right, jessamyn/mathowie/cortex/pb/vacapinta/[Cabal Mod names redacted]?
posted by Rock Steady at 9:11 PM on November 23, 2008
posted by Rock Steady at 9:11 PM on November 23, 2008
I bought what I thought was 5lbs of RSI Internet Magic™, but the (admittedly nifty) glass vial it came in only held about an ounce of the stuff. Well, I can only assume that's how much it held—turns out the 5lbs was accounted for by the packing material, which turned out to be many small rocks. NOT RECOMMENDED, but it sent up a glorious red flame when I tossed it on the burning magical lionland.
The free gift pack of Named Entities© did come in handy, though.
posted by carsonb at 9:57 PM on November 23, 2008
The free gift pack of Named Entities© did come in handy, though.
posted by carsonb at 9:57 PM on November 23, 2008
*strokes Brandon Blatcher's goatee evilly*
Easy, just got it detailed.
posted by Brandon Blatcher at 11:03 PM on November 23, 2008
Easy, just got it detailed.
posted by Brandon Blatcher at 11:03 PM on November 23, 2008
I love you people.
posted by languagehat at 6:12 AM on November 24, 2008
posted by languagehat at 6:12 AM on November 24, 2008
The only reason I appealed to cortex was because I knew he had been following the thread, and I thought he would be more susceptible to my appeal to the comedy gods.
Alas, I was busy taking in the rich intellectual topography of a Joe Eszterhas film.
posted by cortex (staff) at 6:28 AM on November 24, 2008
Alas, I was busy taking in the rich intellectual topography of a Joe Eszterhas film.
posted by cortex (staff) at 6:28 AM on November 24, 2008
So… so IE is better ('better' meaning 'has magic portals') than Firefox?
I don't think I can go on.
posted by shakespeherian at 6:46 AM on November 24, 2008
I don't think I can go on.
posted by shakespeherian at 6:46 AM on November 24, 2008
a Joe Eszterhas film
Was it Showgirls? I bet it was Showgirls.
Because you said "topography."
posted by Rock Steady at 7:08 AM on November 24, 2008
Was it Showgirls? I bet it was Showgirls.
Because you said "topography."
posted by Rock Steady at 7:08 AM on November 24, 2008
I just removed the empty
posted by pb (staff) at 9:32 AM on November 24, 2008
<a href> tags across MeFi, including post preview. I'm not sure I hit every possible place they were showing up though, so if you spot any more let me know.posted by pb (staff) at 9:32 AM on November 24, 2008
*woop woop woop sheeeeeeeeeeeFOOM!*
Ack! The portal to internet magicland spiralled closed on me when I was halfway through! Now my bottom half is longcat!
posted by Ambrosia Voyeur at 9:44 AM on November 24, 2008
Ack! The portal to internet magicland spiralled closed on me when I was halfway through! Now my bottom half is longcat!
posted by Ambrosia Voyeur at 9:44 AM on November 24, 2008
halfcat is half
posted by cortex (staff) at 9:51 AM on November 24, 2008 [1 favorite]
posted by cortex (staff) at 9:51 AM on November 24, 2008 [1 favorite]
I love you people.
I don't.
But you still amuse me plenty.
posted by eyeballkid at 4:47 PM on November 24, 2008
I don't.
But you still amuse me plenty.
posted by eyeballkid at 4:47 PM on November 24, 2008
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Seriously, I didn't know that particular page existed. All that stuff lives in that subdirectory, of course (along with at this point a number of other things, I think); maybe that was an old working scratch-page index of features? Or something? Matt or pb would know more, I'm sure.
Why exactly you produced the mouseover-to-phantom-link for your post, I don't know, but I think I can explain the link itself: if there was a stray, borked link (e.g. <a href=""></a>) in there somehow, that'd be treated as a link to the local page. IE for whatever reason displays the local working directory instead of the full path including the post.cfm, so you see what you see there.
So details of the mouseover itself kinda hazy—possible interaction with any plugins or something? Malformed link in the drafting process of your post?—but I think the rest makes sense.
posted by cortex (staff) at 4:27 PM on November 23, 2008 [1 favorite]