Longest time from comment to first like February 26, 2019 4:37 PM   Subscribe

I just noticed today that this comment that I left on an Ask MeFi post on 1/10/2010 got it's first like on 2/23/2019. That's over 9 years from comment to its first like. Surely that isn't the record.
posted by COD to MetaFilter-Related at 4:37 PM (28 comments total) 3 users marked this as a favorite

Cheating to win.
posted by Huffy Puffy at 4:42 PM on February 26, 2019 [13 favorites]


That's a good question! You could certainly dig up some answers using the raw data in the Infodump; matching up comment/post ids in the commentdata and postdata files with same in the favorites stats file and then checking for data ranges would be pretty straightforward.
posted by cortex (staff) at 4:43 PM on February 26, 2019 [2 favorites]


But (as evidenced by Huffy Puffy's goofery above) there's also going to be a theoretical upper limit at any moment: favoriting whatever the oldest item with no favorites is. Which is I'm sure not the one Huffy Puffy favorited! Because there's a couple years of site content between the start and that latter-day period in that particular thread.

Plus if you wanted to really try and futz with the outer limits, you'd invest in favorites on unfavorited early items so that you could later go back and un- and re-fave that item to push out the window to the current maximum (which grows constantly as time marches on).
posted by cortex (staff) at 4:45 PM on February 26, 2019 [6 favorites]


You've put a lot of thought into this, cortex. What's your angle?
posted by Johnny Wallflower at 5:25 PM on February 26, 2019 [15 favorites]


Nine months ago somebody favorited one of my AskMe answers from way back in 2005.

Oof on edit just realized you were asking about longest gap between post and FIRST like. Nevermind!
posted by saladin at 5:35 PM on February 26, 2019 [1 favorite]


This still isn't as weird as when someone will favorite a tweet you made in 2009 about some random topic. Those are the favorites/likes that always blow my god damn mind. Like who are you, how did you discover this thing from forever ago, and why do you still care?
posted by Fizz at 5:58 PM on February 26, 2019 [4 favorites]


I believe it's more common than you think. I just scrolled through my of "favorited by others" and found recent favorites for comments from 2007 and 2006, and that's just on the first page.
posted by dobbs at 7:03 PM on February 26, 2019 [1 favorite]


On preview... The 2006 one is a first favorite; 2007 is not.
posted by dobbs at 7:05 PM on February 26, 2019 [1 favorite]


Last month, I got a first like on a comment from Nov 2009. Thanks, nicolin! The decade that passed made it all the more satisfying.
posted by roger ackroyd at 7:45 PM on February 26, 2019 [2 favorites]


Comment, September 18, 2002.
Favorited by cgc373, June 28, 2017.

I have a daughter younger than that comment. I just shared the quote in it with her.
posted by thatwhichfalls at 8:48 PM on February 26, 2019 [13 favorites]


There should be a mandatory field users favouriting any comment whose last favourite was more than 90 days ago where they explain why. I assume most post favourites from that long ago are from people who were about to post a double but some of the necro comments that get favourites are pretty inexplicable.
posted by Mitheral at 11:45 PM on February 26, 2019 [1 favorite]


I'll sometimes get first likes on very old posts of mine.

Here's a post of mine from 2002 and another from 2005, both of which were only liked for the first time in the past few months.
posted by vacapinta at 1:35 AM on February 27, 2019 [1 favorite]


Got one yesterday on a comment from 2006. Blew my mind a little.
posted by Miko at 3:49 AM on February 27, 2019


Wait are favorites likes now?
posted by aubilenon at 10:36 AM on February 27, 2019 [4 favorites]


Yep we all got together and decided that favorites were likes and retweets were definitely endorsements.
posted by Space Coyote at 10:41 AM on February 27, 2019 [7 favorites]


But who's selling what.
posted by clavdivs at 4:54 PM on February 27, 2019 [1 favorite]


It's not the first favorite the comment got, but your post prompted me to go see if I had any older posts/comments that had recently been favorited, and turns out this one from a year ago was recently favorited by Tehhund! Squee! I assume he is just diligently working his way through not just the megathreads, but every thread ever posted.

Anyway. Gave me a warm and fuzzy feeling. Whatever happens in this crazy world, Tehhund will be out there, behind us all, making his way through our threads, leaving little breadcrumbs of favorites as he goes.
posted by aka burlap at 8:50 PM on February 27, 2019 [7 favorites]


I use my random oh my how did you did that one up anyhows? favourites as a random omen for the day generator - a random comment that I muse upon like a zen koan, looking for meaning in the entrails. Does he love me? Does he love me not?
posted by infini at 7:31 AM on February 28, 2019


I also keep favourites invisible and have done so ever since it was first piloted. You will drag that ability out of my cold dead hands.
posted by infini at 7:32 AM on February 28, 2019 [2 favorites]


I miss amberglow.
posted by infini at 7:35 AM on February 28, 2019 [1 favorite]


Wait are favorites likes now?

No, bookmarks are.
posted by flabdablet at 10:02 AM on February 28, 2019 [2 favorites]


I see my previous comment got a favorite from cgc373 (who favorited the original comment) and now it has one from Tehhund.
Loops are being closed, loose ends are tying themselves up...
Overhead, without any fuss, the stars were going out.
posted by thatwhichfalls at 2:45 PM on February 28, 2019 [7 favorites]


I also keep favourites invisible and have done so ever since it was first piloted.

Eh? This is possible?
posted by theappleonatree at 2:43 PM on March 1, 2019


It's a profile setting (first drop down on the page). It hides favourite counts on all content pages but not on your profile page. Many of us find it greatly reduces the Grarrr!
posted by Mitheral at 2:46 PM on March 1, 2019 [1 favorite]


There should be a mandatory field users favouriting any comment whose last favourite was more than 90 days ago where they explain why. I assume most post favourites from that long ago are from people who were about to post a double but some of the necro comments that get favourites are pretty inexplicable.

I mean I just read old posts sometimes and if I see comments I like I fave them just as when I see comments I like brand new.
posted by atoxyl at 10:32 AM on March 2, 2019 [6 favorites]


Sometimes I'm looking for info on something and do a search and some pretty old posts come up. When I'm really going down a rabbit hole I sometimes forget whether I'm reading old content or new content unless I make a point of looking at the dates, but even so if I like something I like it.
posted by bunderful at 4:36 PM on March 3, 2019 [1 favorite]


Somebody just favourited this metatalk thread of mine from May 2007
posted by infini at 11:00 PM on March 11, 2019


Is there a way to see the time between when an Ask post was made, and the time that the Resolved tag was added?

I legit had an ask where I was compelled, after reading a scientific review article and skimmed a few (non-cited) case reports, to mark the first three answers as Best in under an hour.

This category can be gamed to the speed of coordination (measurable in nanoseconds).
posted by porpoise at 9:44 PM on March 12, 2019


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