Generating a list of best answers in my own question

November 3, 2010 5:00 AM

Is there a script or trick that I can use to display a list of the comments I marked as "best answer" in my own questions? I'm thinking for recipes, "recommend me music..." and similar queries, it'd be great to be able to copy/paste or print out a list of the comments I intend to delve into more later. I'm thinking there's already a way, but I just don't know it.
posted by xo to Feature Requests at 5:00 AM (9 comments total)

Hmm. I know you can see this one question at a time, but I think what you want is a consolidated list of everything marked as best answer from every question you've ever posted?

I was trying to see if there was an obvious way to do this using the awesome infodumpster that Combustible Edison Lighthouse made, but if so, it's not obvious to me. Perhaps someone clever can figure out how to do it with that.

If you are handy with databases and such, you could download a copy of the Infodump and query it yourself to generate this list. I have some resources listed in my profile that would help with this. And if you're not handy with databases, I would be happy to run this list for you when I get home this evening, if you'd like.
posted by FishBike at 5:23 AM on November 3, 2010 [1 favorite]

Pretty much what FishBike said, yeah. I would also be happy for him to run this list for you when he gets home.
posted by cortex (staff) at 6:40 AM on November 3, 2010

Doesn't work for past best answers, but in future you could always favourite everything you best-answered, then view your list of favourited answers.
posted by EndsOfInvention at 7:03 AM on November 3, 2010

Doesn't work for past best answers, but in future you could always favourite everything you best-answered, then view your list of favourited answers.

I think the issue with that is that it would muddy the waters. The OP wants solutions to questions they asked, whereas favourites are used as all sorts of things not related to a specific question. You might also get far more results than you intended - I've only asked around 40 questions, but have over 200 favourites.
posted by djgh at 7:36 AM on November 3, 2010

jdlugo just wrote a bookmarklet to sort comments by best answer while you're viewing a thread. You could visit your past threads and use that to bring the best answers to the top.
posted by pb (staff) at 10:09 AM on November 3, 2010

It turns out to be really easy to generate a list of links to best answers in any user's questions, so you such a list by MeFi Mail, xo. Sending a compilation of the actual comments themselves would have been kind of neat, but not really possible from just the Infodump since it doesn't have comment content in it.

I know we have a facility for exporting our comments, but when I was looking at that it didn't seem particularly easy to just load it into an SQL table. I don't suppose there's a chance of getting some other format for the comment export file that would be more suitable for such a purpose?
posted by FishBike at 6:25 PM on November 3, 2010

(that should have read: "so I sent you such a list, xo")
posted by FishBike at 6:26 PM on November 3, 2010

I don't suppose there's a chance of getting some other format for the comment export file that would be more suitable for such a purpose?

This is the first request we've had for a different format. Based on conversations here I think most people are exporting comments to read through them, so I think the current readable format is great for that. I'm not sure there's enough demand for a machine readable format.

It should be possible to parse the file into something usable. A little Perl could probably turn it into CSV, XML, or whatever you need.
posted by pb (staff) at 6:59 PM on November 3, 2010

This is the first request we've had for a different format. Based on conversations here I think most people are exporting comments to read through them, so I think the current readable format is great for that. I'm not sure there's enough demand for a machine readable format.

Yeah, I think that is how most people use the export feature too, and I'm actually sure there isn't enough demand to justify providing other options. The current format also works fine for a DIY MarkovFilter type of thing using the Dissociated Press command that comes with emacs, which is the only thing I've used my exported comments for so far.

It should be possible to parse the file into something usable. A little Perl could probably turn it into CSV, XML, or whatever you need.

It would probably be a good learning experience for me to try this in Perl. I'm a little less intimidated by it now that I found out Perl code isn't customarily encrypted--it just looks like it was.
posted by FishBike at 5:34 AM on November 4, 2010