Pony Request: MyTalk

April 25, 2016 9:25 AM

Would it be possible to get the ability to filter MetaTalk posts by tags and create "My Talk"?

This site allows you to create tag lists of topics to include or exclude for two of the subsites, My Mefi for Metafliter and My Ask for AskMetafilter. Would it be possible to create something similar for MetaTalk? Maybe it could be called My Talk.

posted by Rob Rockets to Feature Requests at 9:25 AM (15 comments total)

Thanks for the suggestion, we'll give that some thought. My initial reaction is that there aren't very many posts at MetaTalk so there isn't as great a need to filter them. It's pretty easy to scan and catch up with MetaTalk even if you haven't visited for some time.
posted by pb (staff) at 9:27 AM on April 25, 2016 [1 favorite]

I had a similar thought to pb's: There are "My" tabs on the Blue front page and AskMe because the posts on those pages tend to come so fast that it can be difficult to keep up and/or find what you like. Having a way to filter them down to a manageable level or to your preferences makes sense when the volume is so high. But MetaTalk posts are a few a day, tops, so keeping on top of them is easy and there's not a lot of cruft to filter away from the MeTa homepage.
posted by carsonb at 11:07 AM on April 25, 2016

Would the purpose be to filter out those potentially upsetting conversations that you just never want to see?
posted by bleep at 12:49 PM on April 25, 2016

If you are looking for a filter, you might want to look into a browser extension. The main one that helped me on this MeTa is defunct, but there were other suggestions given.

I'll be honest, after a few months of having the "power" to scrub posts that I didn't like from my view, they stopped upsetting me so much, so I haven't gone looking for a replacement.
posted by sparklemotion at 12:54 PM on April 25, 2016

there aren't very many posts at MetaTalk

which brings up a related issue - is there some simple way within the other sub-sites to know when something is posted here? because it's a drag clicking and seeing nothing new then, a day or two later, finding that you missed most of a big discussion yesterday.

i know (well, assume) there's rss - i just wondered if there was / should be something in contact activity or similar?
posted by andrewcooke at 12:56 PM on April 25, 2016 [1 favorite]

Default 'Add to activity' for MetaTalk posts?

I say it because it's an obvious answer to 'how to find out there's a MeTa without visiting MeTa?' but it makes me feel strange.

Why?
posted by carsonb at 1:19 PM on April 25, 2016 [2 favorites]

Why?

For me, given the subject matter of many MeTas (and how fighty they can get) finding out about MeTa's from the last 10 comments showing up on my activity feed would be pretty icky. If "Add MetaTalk to Activity" were an option, I would never choose it. If it were mandatory it would make me really sad.
posted by sparklemotion at 1:36 PM on April 25, 2016

I'm sorry I was unclear:

I meant adding it as a Preferences Page option, one of the check boxes would say "Add MetaTalk posts to Activity by default?" or something and it would very rightly remain unchecked until user-selected otherwise.

Don't be sad.
posted by carsonb at 1:59 PM on April 25, 2016 [1 favorite]

I'm not sad! I don't think that it's likely that MetaTalk-to-Activity-For-All would ever happen.

You'd asked why it felt strange to you, and I gave my take on why it would feel strange to me. I honestly don't care if it gets added as an option, but I get the impression that the powers that be look to comments on these MeTas to gauge interest so I figured I note how I felt.
posted by sparklemotion at 2:10 PM on April 25, 2016

because it's a drag clicking and seeing nothing new then, a day or two later, finding that you missed most of a big discussion yesterday.

You mean there are people whose browsers don't autocomplete "m" to "metatalk.metafilter.com"??? :O

Seriously, though, it's best to start here every day before visiting any of the other subsites if for no other reason than to know if there are any dumpster fire threads to watch out for.
posted by Jacqueline at 4:21 PM on April 25, 2016 [3 favorites]

Default 'Add to activity' for MetaTalk posts?

Oh man, even I wouldn't want that and I already basically have a professional obligation to do so.
posted by cortex (staff) at 9:22 PM on April 25, 2016 [1 favorite]

I recommend not only starting your MeFi Experience with MetaTalk, but specifically the Recent Comments page of MetaTalk.

Unlike the other subsites, which have dozens of simultaneous active threads, MetaTalk usually only has a handful, so if you visit daily, you can almost always see every thread in MetaTalk that's had any activity.

And if it has been a few days, and more than 20 threads have activity since your last visit, fear not! Because there's pagination at the bottom!

I'm sure that seems like a mundane thing to point out, but there didn't used to be. And it's my pony and I want everyone to ride her.
posted by SpiffyRob at 7:15 AM on April 26, 2016 [1 favorite]

Bleep: For me at least, the purpose of this pony is to filter out those MetaTalk posts I don't wish to see. I can perform keyword filtering on the blue and green with MyMefi and MyAsk by just entering excluded tags and no favorite tags, I was hoping to be able to do something similar on the grey.

While I'd like there to be a feature like "MyTalk" I can accomplish what I want to do with the diediedead! Greasemonkey script. But it was still worth it to ask for a pony. Thanks pb for any thought you give my pony.
posted by Rob Rockets at 6:47 AM on April 27, 2016 [1 favorite]

andrewcooke, there is a MeTa RSS feed, which accomplishes what you're asking. You can subscribe at http://feeds.feedburner.com/MeFi/MetaTalk.
posted by softlord at 7:17 AM on April 28, 2016 [1 favorite]

With pb leaving I realize that this a pony that will probably never see the light of day, escpecially since I can work around the issue. Thanks for listening any way. Good luck in your future employment pb!
posted by Rob Rockets at 11:02 AM on April 28, 2016