Wanted: a quicker way to stalk, I mean memail people

December 14, 2009 7:13 PM

Can we skip a step when memailing someone? I'd like to be able to type in the username in the TO field, rather than 1) searching for their username 2) clicking on their profile link 3) clicking on the "send mail" link.
posted by desjardins to Feature Requests at 7:13 PM (20 comments total)

Oh man, Kattallus and Katullus are going to be getting so much MeMail.

Okay, so maybe one a month. But every one that doesn't make it to me is one that fails to make my day!
posted by Kattullus at 7:28 PM on December 14, 2009

Now that I've snarked... this is my principal use of the usercontacts page. If you have "show contacts" set to "full" a little mail icon pops up when you rest your cursor on the profile picture.
posted by Kattullus at 7:30 PM on December 14, 2009

Oh man, Kattallus and Katullus are going to be getting so much MeMail.

oh god awkward
I guess that's why you never replied to the erotic haiku I sent
posted by little e at 7:42 PM on December 14, 2009 [21 favorites]

and what about all those pictures of my feet you asked for?
posted by Ouisch at 7:45 PM on December 14, 2009 [1 favorite]

Well you can at least combine steps 1 and 2 by going directly to their profile page with http://metafilter.com/username/[username]. If you add that as a Firefox keyword search then you can just type "mefiuser [username]" without having to remember the URL.
posted by Rhomboid at 7:50 PM on December 14, 2009

pb can speak up if he wants but I think we're pretty much not planning to add any features to MeMail that make it any more like email. It's not that it's supposed to be complicated, but just that it's for the occasional "send a message to a user" feature, not to supplant real email.
posted by jessamyn (staff) at 8:00 PM on December 14, 2009

Yeah, we have a "Your Contacts" tab in MeFi Mail that is supposed to be a quick way to send someone a message. We don't want MeFi Mail to be a replacement for all of the much, much better email clients out there. I think if you're regularly contacting someone out of blue where it isn't prompted by a specific post/comment on the site, it might be good to ask for their email address.

If your message is prompted by a post/comment, you can simply click on the username and you're a click away.
posted by pb (staff) at 8:12 PM on December 14, 2009

OK well can you at least make my post comment button look like a unicorn?

Thanks in advance.
posted by desjardins at 8:43 PM on December 14, 2009

I must warn you powers-that-be at MetaFilter that you are attempting to break Zawinski's Law: Every program attempts to expand until it can read mail. "Ha! Ha!" you say, "What care I for Zawinski's Law? Pish, and, likewise, tosh!" But you forget the second part of Zawinski's Law: Those programs which cannot so expand are replaced by ones which can.
posted by Crabby Appleton at 10:00 PM on December 14, 2009 [1 favorite]

Crabby Appleton: "Zawinski's Law"

"all programmers accrue money until they feel the need to open a nightclub"
posted by boo_radley at 10:35 PM on December 14, 2009 [3 favorites]

I see the difficulty in sending mail as a feature, not a bug. I imagine that the time spent pulling up the screen can cool hot heads in heated moments. I know I've gone through a creepiness-factor check in those seconds.
posted by frecklefaerie at 11:03 PM on December 14, 2009 [1 favorite]

You want my Greasemonkey script. Puts a little e-mail icon next to a user's name everywhere on the site, so all you have to do is click on it to start an e-mail. Still not as easy as typing their name into a field, true. But still pretty easy.

Oh, heck. I'll just add a "New Mail" button that does what you want.

So long as you promise to download it and use it.
posted by Deathalicious at 11:54 PM on December 14, 2009

Argh. Never mind. A quick review of the code shows that MeMails use the user id, not the member name. I ain't doing a user lookup just to make you happy.
posted by Deathalicious at 12:02 AM on December 15, 2009

I need to figure out how to send a banjo to a certain user. Is there a functionality I am missing somewhere for this, or can it be easily added? Thanks.
posted by allkindsoftime at 1:00 AM on December 15, 2009 [3 favorites]

Start with sending a mouth harp and build up to the banjo. It's less creepy that way.
posted by Rhomboid at 1:37 AM on December 15, 2009

Start with sending a mouth harp and build up to the banjo. It's less creepy that way.

It's much less creepy if you give them a heads up about the arrival of the mouth harp by telling them "you have a gift for them to put in their mouth". It's even less creepy than that if you respectfully get their attention by staring at them intently while licking your lips so that they know you have something to say. There is a secret code that lets you know how interested they are in receiving your mouth harp when they send someone to give you an envelope with the special message "restraining order", which means they can hardly contain their joy at receiving a mouth harp and subsequently a banjo.
posted by BrotherCaine at 2:52 AM on December 15, 2009 [1 favorite]

I never understood the whole mouth harp thing. I mean, you can only pluck one string at a time with your tongue, and you have to hold your head at a really uncomfortable angle.

Plus, people get really upset when you try theirs without asking.
posted by quin at 8:09 AM on December 15, 2009

"all programmers accrue money until they feel the need to open a nightclub"

Man, I totally want to open a nightclub.
posted by empath at 10:24 AM on December 15, 2009

I just want to accrue money.
posted by craven_morhead at 10:59 AM on December 15, 2009

BrotherCaine: It's much less creepy if you give them a heads

Heh.
posted by shakespeherian at 11:40 AM on December 15, 2009