Proposal: Bookmarks cleanup month July 12, 2019 8:38 AM   Subscribe

Can we do a "post something interesting from your bookmarks" month?

pros: more nice submissions on the blue, you actually go through your five trillion bookmarks.

cons: ??
posted by Cozybee to MetaFilter-Related at 8:38 AM (34 comments total) 15 users marked this as a favorite

I was doing this a few days ago, looking at my bookmarks for things to post.

a lot of them are dead :(
posted by the man of twists and turns at 8:53 AM on July 12, 2019 [5 favorites]


Yes, we could do that!
posted by nangar at 8:55 AM on July 12, 2019


I only have twenty thousand bookmarks. Really. When my total Pinboard count goes above twenty thousand, I clean some old ones out. So, yeah, I am sure I can find something good in there.
posted by soelo at 9:20 AM on July 12, 2019 [3 favorites]


Oh my gosh, I could post about 100 recipes for an overabundance of tomatoes. Apparently that's what I was dealing with right after my last bookmark-purge. Just a few more months and I'll be dealing with that again!
posted by Gray Duck at 9:32 AM on July 12, 2019 [5 favorites]


Cons: I have a folder in my bookmarks that is just 47 links to the exact same page about in-cupboard rolling drawers and statistically speaking, I would probably have to post that.

But I also have a folder of things I thought I might post to Metafilter, so maybe there's something there?
posted by jacquilynne at 9:53 AM on July 12, 2019 [2 favorites]


I really like this idea, yeah! I have a couple always-minimized browser windows to hold the tabs of "i oughta make a post about that stuff" that I can't accommodate with my main browser window tab hygiene twitchiness, and this would be a good reminder to make some of 'em happen.
posted by cortex (staff) at 9:54 AM on July 12, 2019 [3 favorites]


ABC: August Bookmark Cleanup!

Confession: I ... don't do bookmarks. Instead, I have a handful of draft Google emails with random links going back years. It makes them more portable (and allow easy post-drafting). But those emails are way too full of interesting things I have not yet shared. Time for some summer/winter cleaning!
posted by filthy light thief at 9:58 AM on July 12, 2019 [9 favorites]


Filthy light thief, I do that too! Also ones I sent to myself to circle back to ....

I started a post in a draft email but I'm having a hard time moving it from "a couple links I found personally interesting but not super extensive" to "something worth posting"
posted by brilliantine at 10:25 AM on July 12, 2019


I am down for this! I've gotten more aware of other bloggers doing the same thing as me (watching through a list of classic films) and one dude got all excited when he saw me looking and started following me, and he's been a faithful commenter and I wanna show him some love.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 10:42 AM on July 12, 2019 [3 favorites]


I JUST cleaned out my bookmarks so most of what's left is..uh...fanmade English translations of Chinese webnovels. Not sure that's suitable for the blue but maybe someone wants to join me in a Nirvana in Fire or Guardian rewatch on Fanfare? I'll figure something out.
posted by Stacey at 10:50 AM on July 12, 2019


Ooh...that sounds fun! I propose a second rule tho...links should be old..like 5-10-15 years, since this is sort of a "cleaning house" project...also, I think we tend to bookmark less these days since you can just google stuff. I miiight have a folder full of (I'm sure mostly dead) links to a whole bunch of handmade sites about handmade Japanese wooden spinning tops from probably my very first 4am internet rabbit hole ever. I will check. (A bunch of them are shaped like mushrooms!)
posted by sexyrobot at 11:49 AM on July 12, 2019 [4 favorites]


Also: Bookmark Backlog? Bookmark Bargain Bin?
posted by sexyrobot at 11:53 AM on July 12, 2019 [2 favorites]


Fabulous idea. A lot of mine are to old sites hosting even older texts of old speeches and poems and such, so I could provide a little context (but not too much).
posted by sallybrown at 12:51 PM on July 12, 2019


I like this a lot!
posted by Homo neanderthalensis at 1:16 PM on July 12, 2019


I love this idea! I have been meaning to do something like it myself, even, on a smaller scale. Thank you for suggesting it.
posted by sciatrix at 2:08 PM on July 12, 2019


I can't figure out why I bothered to bookmark a news article about a four-horned goat on the loose.
posted by tofu_crouton at 2:16 PM on July 12, 2019 [5 favorites]


Or an old French text about bird skeletons.
posted by tofu_crouton at 2:18 PM on July 12, 2019 [3 favorites]


because you knew we would love four-horned sheep bird skeleton content?
posted by sciatrix at 2:19 PM on July 12, 2019 [4 favorites]


I love this! Off to see what's in the hopper...!
posted by Mchelly at 3:55 PM on July 12, 2019


Have run into an interesting problem -

Metafilter HAS BEEN the source of most of my bookmarks.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 3:58 PM on July 12, 2019 [7 favorites]


All my bookmarks that aren't tabletop gaming blogs are old blogs and sites that are no longer a going concern, or well-known sites that people on Metafilter probably don't need to be told about.

I like to be judicious about the tabletop gaming stuff. I've been trying to post more the last couple of years but I'm not always sure what will be interesting or alternatively what will surprise me with a negative response with Metafilter these days.

Metafilter HAS BEEN the source of most of my bookmarks.

Also this.
posted by Caduceus at 4:00 PM on July 12, 2019 [1 favorite]


or well-known sites that people on Metafilter probably don't need to be told about.

I feel you on that instinct, but don't let it overawe sharing cool not-literally-ubiquitous stuff, especially if it hasn't actually been posted on MeFi before (or not in the last five or ten years, even, we're pretty okay these days with doubles of cool stuff years and years later). You never know who doesn't know about the stuff you think folks know about! If half the people who see your post go "oh, yeah, I know that", half the people seeing it are seeing it for the first time, and that's a ton of people.

Obviously this doesn't apply to e.g. cnn.com or whatever, and use your own judgement is always the end of the story, but don't write something off just for not being a super deep cut!
posted by cortex (staff) at 4:11 PM on July 12, 2019 [4 favorites]


I like this! My bookmarks folder is a tag/folder in Instapaper since I’m mostly on my phone.
posted by ellieBOA at 10:52 PM on July 12, 2019


I actually have a screenshot of my tweenage AOL Favorite Places (!!!) from back when I salvaged an old hard drive. Always thought it would make an amusingly esoteric post, and I just might do it now (as soon as I can dig up the image).
posted by Rhaomi at 11:06 PM on July 12, 2019 [1 favorite]


I would do this but it would have a lot of emulators and links for things I'm not even sure I ever knew what they were for
posted by scruss at 8:26 AM on July 13, 2019


>I used the tag "postfromyourbookmarks"

OK, I'll use that also

>a lot of them are dead :(

do they have archive.org backups?

>ABC: August Bookmark Cleanup!

I love this

>I JUST cleaned out my bookmarks so most of what's left is..uh...fanmade English translations of Chinese webnovels. Not sure that's suitable for the blue but maybe someone wants to join me in a Nirvana in Fire or Guardian rewatch on Fanfare? I'll figure something out.

Yes please?
posted by Cozybee at 10:45 AM on July 13, 2019 [1 favorite]


see also
posted by tofu_crouton at 1:38 PM on July 13, 2019


we're pretty okay these days with doubles of cool stuff years and years later

One side benefit of the relaxed double policy is being able to compare receptions by Metafilter Past (*ominous chain rattling*) and Metafilter Present.
posted by zamboni at 3:04 PM on July 13, 2019 [3 favorites]


I have been grinding through a big consolidation of bookmarks into Pinboard this year. Seconding sexyrobot's idea about "links should be old..like 5-10-15 years". I'm entertained by the bookmarks to stories and blog posts predicting the future that are already wildly wrong. Maybe that would be an interesting post - the world in 2019, according to VCs in 2009. An example of a snippet from my first bookmark on Bitcoin:
"At the time of this writing, one Bitcoin (BTC) is worth about US$15."

when was this? as of last night it was over $20 due to all the morons jumping on this because they think it's the "next big thing" (nevermind that the value is hugely unstable and no one is actually using this for anything except drugs and money laundering)

posted by kovacs at 5:24 PM on July 13, 2019 [2 favorites]


What a fun idea. I have posted from my bookmarks!
posted by moonmilk at 8:07 PM on July 13, 2019


fanmade English translations of Chinese webnovels.

Not my particular vice, but surely you'll find some black-bellied thigh-grippers who'll be into it.
posted by sebastienbailard at 9:54 PM on July 13, 2019


Thank you. This is a GREAT idea.
posted by brainwane at 7:25 AM on July 14, 2019


Thank you to everyone who's been posting; there have been so many great posts!
posted by LobsterMitten (staff) at 1:28 PM on July 16, 2019 [1 favorite]


It's August now and I remembered to post something with the postfromyourbookmarks tag!
posted by brainwane at 9:31 AM on August 10, 2019


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