Can I submit multiple related posts? May 10, 2011 12:18 PM Subscribe
Would it be okay to submit multiple posts in a related series? Namely, Eurovision.
Since the Eurovision post I submitted this morning (this) has gotten a good response, I was wondering whether it would be okay to submit posts for the Thursday and Saturday editions of the contest as well.
Since the Eurovision post I submitted this morning (this) has gotten a good response, I was wondering whether it would be okay to submit posts for the Thursday and Saturday editions of the contest as well.
A whole series seems a little much to me, especially for an annual event. If people are that into the contest, they can follow it closely themselves and discuss the happenings in the open thread. What about doing a wrap-up post after the contest is over with links to the winners, biggest losers, various highlights, commentary, and anything else of interest?
posted by zachlipton at 2:10 PM on May 10, 2011
posted by zachlipton at 2:10 PM on May 10, 2011
Good advice for election-time, too.
posted by crunchland at 2:12 PM on May 10, 2011 [2 favorites]
posted by crunchland at 2:12 PM on May 10, 2011 [2 favorites]
A reminder to any and all: you can contact all the mods at once (and pb!) by using the contact form. If you forget where it is, hit up the FAQ and search for "contact form," or go to the end of the page, and there it is under the 2nd to last topic ("I think I found a bug").
And I agree, that's a lot for an annual event with known dates of re-occurrence. Topics might get less activity when they slip off the front page, but that's not always the case.
posted by filthy light thief at 2:14 PM on May 10, 2011
And I agree, that's a lot for an annual event with known dates of re-occurrence. Topics might get less activity when they slip off the front page, but that's not always the case.
posted by filthy light thief at 2:14 PM on May 10, 2011
This is what Recent Activity is for. People who really want to follow Eurovision on Metafilter should keep checking their Recent Activity.
posted by John Cohen at 2:15 PM on May 10, 2011 [1 favorite]
posted by John Cohen at 2:15 PM on May 10, 2011 [1 favorite]
If you want to know what I'm up to, just MeMail me.
posted by Brandon Blatcher at 2:29 PM on May 10, 2011 [1 favorite]
posted by Brandon Blatcher at 2:29 PM on May 10, 2011 [1 favorite]
but, but I have EUROVISION FEVER!!!
posted by Razzle Bathbone at 2:45 PM on May 10, 2011 [1 favorite]
posted by Razzle Bathbone at 2:45 PM on May 10, 2011 [1 favorite]
This is what Recent Activity is for. People who really want to follow Eurovision on Metafilter should keep checking their Recent Activity.
You'd think so, but it doesn't work that way. Only people who post in the thread can use recent activity like that. Hence all the meaningless "I'm going to come back here through the magic of recent activity" comments in the bin Laden thread.
You could favourite a comment and then find it through recent favourites but some people are reluctant to do that because there's a perception that a favourite is an endorsement.
The way Metafilter's UI has evolved organically is one of the wonderful things about the place, but there's obviously a gap here. Perhaps it would be too difficult to do. Perhaps PB's working on it right now.
posted by GeckoDundee at 2:59 PM on May 10, 2011 [1 favorite]
You'd think so, but it doesn't work that way. Only people who post in the thread can use recent activity like that. Hence all the meaningless "I'm going to come back here through the magic of recent activity" comments in the bin Laden thread.
You could favourite a comment and then find it through recent favourites but some people are reluctant to do that because there's a perception that a favourite is an endorsement.
The way Metafilter's UI has evolved organically is one of the wonderful things about the place, but there's obviously a gap here. Perhaps it would be too difficult to do. Perhaps PB's working on it right now.
posted by GeckoDundee at 2:59 PM on May 10, 2011 [1 favorite]
Serious question: Does this contest have fans in the US? I'm not saying that's a show stopper. I am just gaging appeal to satisfy my own curiosity.
posted by cjorgensen at 3:00 PM on May 10, 2011
posted by cjorgensen at 3:00 PM on May 10, 2011
Only ironic fans
posted by 2bucksplus at 3:03 PM on May 10, 2011 [1 favorite]
posted by 2bucksplus at 3:03 PM on May 10, 2011 [1 favorite]
€20, same as in Lichtenstein.
posted by Eideteker at 3:30 PM on May 10, 2011 [6 favorites]
posted by Eideteker at 3:30 PM on May 10, 2011 [6 favorites]
Only people who post in the thread can use recent activity like that.
People who favorite the original post can follow comment activity by clicking on the "My Favorites" tab (second from the left, under the MeFi logo) on the Recent Activity page without posting in the thread themselves.
posted by EvaDestruction at 4:31 PM on May 10, 2011
People who favorite the original post can follow comment activity by clicking on the "My Favorites" tab (second from the left, under the MeFi logo) on the Recent Activity page without posting in the thread themselves.
posted by EvaDestruction at 4:31 PM on May 10, 2011
That just shows the last 10 comments doesn't it? I've never found that very useful, but I suppose if it was a slow moving thread that had fallen off the front page it could be helpful. (And that would probably be the case for what we're discussing here, now that I think about it).
posted by GeckoDundee at 5:16 PM on May 10, 2011
posted by GeckoDundee at 5:16 PM on May 10, 2011
That just shows the last 10 comments doesn't it?
Yeah but also a link to your most recent comment.
posted by Meatbomb at 5:21 PM on May 10, 2011
Yeah but also a link to your most recent comment.
posted by Meatbomb at 5:21 PM on May 10, 2011
Hence some people will comment, just to get the functionality of a bookmark. (EvaDestruction is talking about favouriting the thread without commenting in it).
posted by GeckoDundee at 5:33 PM on May 10, 2011
posted by GeckoDundee at 5:33 PM on May 10, 2011
Another crazy thing you can do is just leave the thread open, or bookmark it and come back to it, and use load new comments to follow during the busy bits and refresh it after you've been away for a while.
posted by cortex (staff) at 6:28 PM on May 10, 2011
posted by cortex (staff) at 6:28 PM on May 10, 2011
The "load new comments" feature is brilliant. Leaving a thread open for days sounds a little strange to me though. Or at least it doesn't fit with the way I browse. I close my browser several times a day and that takes all the open tabs with it.
The front page has "201 comments (27 new)" next to each thread. When I click on "(27 new)" it takes me straight to the first comment I haven't read. The information must be there in a cookie somewhere. If the thread has scrolled off the front page I can't get this functionality without clicking though on older versions of the front page. It would be nice to be able to access this through something like "recent activity". Maybe something like instead of favourited threads having "48 total comments, last 10 shown below... " it could have "48 total comments, 15 new, last 10 shown below... " where "15 new" was a link to the last unread comment.
It's not a big deal but it would be useful for posts like the Eurovision thread or maybe a thread about the World Cup (soccer) or Australian elections. Something that a significant group of site users will be contributing to for a bit longer than most threads stay active.
Sure I could bookmark the thread in my browser and I'm not demanding or even really asking for this feature. It's more a comment on user interaction which you are of course perfectly free to ignore.
posted by GeckoDundee at 7:01 PM on May 10, 2011
The front page has "201 comments (27 new)" next to each thread. When I click on "(27 new)" it takes me straight to the first comment I haven't read. The information must be there in a cookie somewhere. If the thread has scrolled off the front page I can't get this functionality without clicking though on older versions of the front page. It would be nice to be able to access this through something like "recent activity". Maybe something like instead of favourited threads having "48 total comments, last 10 shown below... " it could have "48 total comments, 15 new, last 10 shown below... " where "15 new" was a link to the last unread comment.
It's not a big deal but it would be useful for posts like the Eurovision thread or maybe a thread about the World Cup (soccer) or Australian elections. Something that a significant group of site users will be contributing to for a bit longer than most threads stay active.
Sure I could bookmark the thread in my browser and I'm not demanding or even really asking for this feature. It's more a comment on user interaction which you are of course perfectly free to ignore.
posted by GeckoDundee at 7:01 PM on May 10, 2011
Does this contest have fans in the US? --- I didn't seek it out, but I ended up having a fortnight-long earworm with the winner from last year. (I'd link to it, but I don't want to start it up again. The flashbacks I'm having right now are bad enough -- something about a dancing elf and a fiddle.)
posted by crunchland at 5:37 AM on May 11, 2011 [1 favorite]
posted by crunchland at 5:37 AM on May 11, 2011 [1 favorite]
The front page has "201 comments (27 new)" next to each thread. When I click on "(27 new)" it takes me straight to the first comment I haven't read. The information must be there in a cookie somewhere.
The thing is that that bit of functionality is notoriously flakey; it works okay as a rough compromise sort of solution, not storing too much data client-side and avoiding a bunch of data storage or load on the server but also yielding pretty poor resolution and sort of resetting itself once you drop by again. We've spent years and years now explaining why it doesn't do a very good job beyond a first approximation; for exactly what it does it's okay but it's not a model we'd extend to a broader new place-tracking function.
And to be clear, the idea of a comment-in-thread-agnostic Add To Recent Activity function actually really appeals to me, I'm right there with you. We've talked about it a bunch behind the scenes in the last few years, and it may happen at some point and I will be super happy if it does, but one of the things we've established in talking about it is that it's not a tiny change; aside from settling a couple UI issues it would require reengineering what is already the most complicated function on the site and either bloating an already big table or refactoring to draw from and update yet another independent table in that monster query. So, unfortunately, there's reason for it not just happening on a whim.
In the face of that, finding some way to specifically accommodate your desire for something like this on the client side is probably the smart move; I hear you that you don't do the Let A Tab Sit Open thing by habit, but maybe pop off a separate browser window or something for Eurovision weekend? Or, yeah, bookmarking. Or if you're greasemonkey-friendly, grab the script someone wrote that manages "where was I in the thread?" as a client-side function.
posted by cortex (staff) at 6:47 AM on May 11, 2011 [1 favorite]
The thing is that that bit of functionality is notoriously flakey; it works okay as a rough compromise sort of solution, not storing too much data client-side and avoiding a bunch of data storage or load on the server but also yielding pretty poor resolution and sort of resetting itself once you drop by again. We've spent years and years now explaining why it doesn't do a very good job beyond a first approximation; for exactly what it does it's okay but it's not a model we'd extend to a broader new place-tracking function.
And to be clear, the idea of a comment-in-thread-agnostic Add To Recent Activity function actually really appeals to me, I'm right there with you. We've talked about it a bunch behind the scenes in the last few years, and it may happen at some point and I will be super happy if it does, but one of the things we've established in talking about it is that it's not a tiny change; aside from settling a couple UI issues it would require reengineering what is already the most complicated function on the site and either bloating an already big table or refactoring to draw from and update yet another independent table in that monster query. So, unfortunately, there's reason for it not just happening on a whim.
In the face of that, finding some way to specifically accommodate your desire for something like this on the client side is probably the smart move; I hear you that you don't do the Let A Tab Sit Open thing by habit, but maybe pop off a separate browser window or something for Eurovision weekend? Or, yeah, bookmarking. Or if you're greasemonkey-friendly, grab the script someone wrote that manages "where was I in the thread?" as a client-side function.
posted by cortex (staff) at 6:47 AM on May 11, 2011 [1 favorite]
OH PLEASE GOD NO MAKE IT STOP
Eurovision is dire. Although i might be slightly biased (warning: first link is a youtube and is NSF-EARS.
posted by marienbad at 9:05 AM on May 11, 2011
Eurovision is dire. Although i might be slightly biased (warning: first link is a youtube and is NSF-EARS.
posted by marienbad at 9:05 AM on May 11, 2011
Thanks for the explanation, cortex. I've come to live with the flakey functionality the way perhaps you accept a door handle that requires a bit of jiggling and turning "just so" to get it to work just because it's such a beautiful door handle. Normally that stuff drives me mad, but the front page feature doesn't bother me. I can see why you wouldn't want to hang a major part of the UI/UX off it though, especially as it sounds like major work. Yet another gentle push towards my learning to use greasemonkey (or even to just download a few scripts) probably isn't a bad thing.
posted by GeckoDundee at 12:41 AM on May 12, 2011
posted by GeckoDundee at 12:41 AM on May 12, 2011
THANKS CRUNCHLAND. I DIDN'T NEED THAT.
I'm in looooove with a faaaaaiiiiirrrrrryyyyy - taaaaaalllleeee.
posted by arcticwoman at 9:09 AM on May 13, 2011
I'm in looooove with a faaaaaiiiiirrrrrryyyyy - taaaaaalllleeee.
posted by arcticwoman at 9:09 AM on May 13, 2011
Heh. I only just realized that he won in 2009, so I managed to completely miss the earworm of 2010.
posted by crunchland at 12:10 PM on May 13, 2011
posted by crunchland at 12:10 PM on May 13, 2011
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posted by jessamyn (staff) at 12:21 PM on May 10, 2011