Deletion with a surprise twist: I'm actually not here to complain

May 29, 2013 9:40 PM

Was redirected here from AskMe by a mod to ask the following question: Is there a way to block Metafilter comments without blocking the site?

No offense to all you lovely people who post here, but when I'm trying to get work done I find the links on Mefi much, much less distracting than the commentary. I tried entering "www.metafilter.com/*" into leechblock hoping it would load the front page but not allow the commentary threads, but that isn't working for me.

Is there any way, using Leechblock, Greasemonkey, or any other online tool, to switch Metafilter comments on and off?

(Bonus points if this method works for Reddit as well)

posted by Ndwright to MetaFilter-Related at 9:40 PM (10 comments total)

The easy way is to not open individual threads. Just read the front page. Of course, that requires self-control.
posted by Chocolate Pickle at 9:50 PM on May 29, 2013 [2 favorites]

I haven't tested this, but Steven Frank's shutup.css tries to auto hide all comments on any site.
posted by mathowie (staff) at 10:26 PM on May 29, 2013 [1 favorite]

WCityMike also made a script (or style? anyways, it works fine for me without stylish) for this back in 2009.
posted by Lorin at 10:27 PM on May 29, 2013

If you use Firefox (which it sounds like you do), there is an add-on called Comment Blocker, which hides the comments section on every website, including MeFi. (It also gives you a toolbar button to turn the comments back on on a per-site basis.)
posted by dendrochronologizer at 10:28 PM on May 29, 2013

If you run the browser add-on Stylish, you can add this style for MetaFilter:

.comments {display:none;}

That should hide all comments on thread pages.
posted by pb (staff) at 10:30 PM on May 29, 2013 [2 favorites]

I just tested with Chrome Nanny, and it allows regular expressions. Thus:

metafilter.com/[0-9]+

doesn't block the home page/start page for ask/meta, but does pop up a blocking failure when I try to click deeper.

Leechblock does not, but I was able to get the same effect (startsites only) with the following site list:

*.metafilter.com/1*
*.metafilter.com/2*
*.metafilter.com/3*
*.metafilter.com/4*
*.metafilter.com/5*
*.metafilter.com/6*
*.metafilter.com/7*
*.metafilter.com/8*
*.metafilter.com/9*

posted by frimble at 10:32 PM on May 29, 2013

The easy way is to not open individual threads. Just read the front page. Of course, that requires self-control.

The problem is that a lot of the content is often "below the fold", including the rest of the links and explanation. Especially on the long FPPs
posted by emptythought at 10:48 PM on May 29, 2013

Yes, Comment Blocker will do what you want on MeFi.

It's become less useful for me lately with some other websites (including the Guardian, YouTube and Gawker sites, which were the reasons I installed it in the first place): blocking comments blocks the content as well.

Also, if you're trying to add comment functionality to your home-built blogging engine, like I was a few weeks ago, it helps to turn Comment Blocker off then, too. :)
posted by daisyk at 12:32 AM on May 30, 2013 [4 favorites]

firefox again, you can also install the element hider add-on as part of adblock to hide comments (and any other part of websites) you don't want to see. It can let you display just the bare bones of a site. Have not found the equivalent on android browser though.
posted by guy72277 at 8:40 AM on May 30, 2013

Self-control? What the hell is that?

Commentblocker is exactly what I was looking for, thanks!
posted by Ndwright at 10:25 AM on May 30, 2013