What's up with all of these prefixes?

August 23, 2002 7:25 PM

What's up with all of these prefixes? Do they mean something?

wilwheatonseemslikeanokguytome.metafilter.com/user.mefi/14275
2nd.birthday.for.metafilter.com/user.mefi/14275
sorry.metafilter.com/user.mefi/14275
a-list.metafilter.com/user.mefi/14275
More inside...

posted by amberglow to MetaFilter-Related at 7:25 PM (18 comments total)

here's more: furbo.metafilter.com/user.mefi/14275
kottke-is-my-hero.metafilter.com/user.mefi/14275
microsoft.sucks.my.metafilter.com/user.mefi/14275
graham.metafilter.com/user.mefi/14275
perpetualbeta.metafilter.com/user.mefi/14275
my.metafilter.com/user.mefi/14275
edgecurve.metafilter.com/user.mefi/14275
foo.metafilter.com/user.mefi/14275
gopher.metafilter.com/user.mefi/14275
???
posted by amberglow at 7:25 PM on August 23, 2002

MetaFilter has wildcard sub-domains enabled, so therefore anything.metafilter.com will work, there are some special sub-domains such as sorry.metafilter.com. 2nd.birthday.for.metafilter.com, etc.
posted by riffola at 7:37 PM on August 23, 2002

but can they be used for anything fun or interesting?
and the special ones? who uses them? why?

i'm using up all my 20 questions at once
posted by amberglow at 7:42 PM on August 23, 2002

theyhavenospecialuse.metafilter.com
thisquestioncomesupeveryfewmonths.metafilter.com
posted by jjg at 8:01 PM on August 23, 2002

sorry.metafilter.com
mybad.metafil....never mind....
posted by amberglow at 8:18 PM on August 23, 2002

I did the wild-card DNS entry so I could create subdomains easily. That way, if I felt like building metatalk.metafilter.com one day, it will work the moment I tweak the web server to do it. It also means that anything.metafilter.com also maps to metafilter, which is fine.

Makes for some amusing google results sometimes.
posted by mathowie (staff) at 9:39 PM on August 23, 2002

Was I dreaming or did weather.metafilter.com used to go to a joke page that described mefi's upcoming personal weather feature?

posted by gluechunk at 12:05 AM on August 24, 2002

it also helps me beat the proxy server at work. thanks matt!

(i spend so much time at MeFi that after 3 months of posting in at work in an institution of 1000 people who all use the web, they added it to their blocked sites list. fucking bastards.) but they can't stop me
posted by insomnyuk at 12:48 AM on August 24, 2002

And let's not forget the ever-popular notalentassclown.com domain
posted by briank at 5:53 AM on August 24, 2002

cool....I found them by googling....and the Delaware thread has me in an investigative loop.
posted by amberglow at 7:51 AM on August 24, 2002

Matt, does it matter to the search engines that people use different subdomains? I noticed that it doesn't convert

http://notalentassclown.metafilter.com
   to
http://www.metafilter.com/

and so does this mean that any spider that finds a *.metafilter.com subdomain will re-index your site 10 or 50 times?
posted by perplexed at 2:15 PM on August 24, 2002

weeeeeee!
posted by quonsar at 3:26 PM on August 24, 2002

Besides the explanations given above, where I work Websense filters www.metafilter.com but doesn't filter *.metafilter.com. The only pages I can't access are metatalk.metafilter.com (which is classified as "games", oddly enough) and the ad redirects.

I'm using bigbrotheriswatchingyou.metafilter.com as a kind of subtle hint, if ever somebody chose to look at the logfiles.
posted by ckemp at 4:01 PM on August 24, 2002

and so does this mean that any spider that finds a *.metafilter.com subdomain will re-index your site 10 or 50 times?
PETA is already on the case, perplexed, and i share your shock and revulsion. jeebus, first it's martha's insider trading, now matt haughey's running a web spider sweatshop. i'm losing my religion.
posted by quonsar at 8:09 PM on August 24, 2002

hmmmmmmm.....

isthisagoodpostornot.metafilter.com

posted by saintsguy at 1:32 AM on August 25, 2002

(i spend so much time at MeFi that after 3 months of posting in at work in an institution of 1000 people who all use the web, they added it to their blocked sites list. fucking bastards.)

Maybe you should seek professional help, insomnyuk, before they fire you.
posted by crunchland at 7:13 AM on August 25, 2002

Can I ask what software you're using to create the wildcard domains? Is it a feature of BIND or is it a bit more exotic than that?
posted by Jimbob at 12:40 AM on August 26, 2002

Pretty much any DNS server should be able to do wildcard domains, unless it's really old or feature-lacking.
posted by kindall at 11:58 AM on August 26, 2002