Grabbing Recent Comments

January 25, 2001 5:13 PM

Thanks to SQL whiz Eric, there is now a feature to grab the most recent comments, on 20 threads, sorted by the most recent comments. This will allow things to "bubble up" again when someone comments on an old thread. I think it's a useful, good feature, but could be abused later on, but for now it's better than nothing. It's available for both members and non-members, if you find any bugs, let me know here. It requires javascript to work.
posted by mathowie (staff) to MetaFilter-Related at 5:13 PM (25 comments total)

Awesome!
posted by aaron at 5:15 PM on January 25, 2001

by the way, a sort based on pageviews, and one on most comments will probably be next.

a categorization system is another thing on the immediate to-do list, though I worry what the unfiltered public view looks like in such a scenario (30-40 links a day?)

And farther down is the ignore list stuff.
posted by mathowie (staff) at 5:52 PM on January 25, 2001

My wish come true :)

This is great, thanks Matt!
posted by sudama at 5:57 PM on January 25, 2001

Did we lose the # of members online?
posted by pnevares at 9:09 PM on January 25, 2001

Yeah, I accidentally hosed that a couple days ago actually. But since there's so much info there already, I thought it might clutter up things (and it didn't serve a purpose, so....)
posted by mathowie (staff) at 11:07 PM on January 25, 2001

Matt,

Would it be possible specify which sorting method the page defaults to as a preference? I like the "Comment" view alot, but every time I refresh, it defaults back to the "date" view. I'm using IE5.5 on a Pc. Thanks.
posted by Optamystic at 6:15 AM on January 26, 2001

The sort by comment view should be bookmarkable. It refreshes fine on IE5/Mac.
posted by sudama at 6:31 AM on January 26, 2001

Kudos, Eric 'n' Matt! Tre bien!
posted by sonofsamiam at 7:47 AM on January 26, 2001

I stumbled across this after my daily reading (since I start at the bottom) and I literally squealed with glee.

Thank goodness mostly everyone's out for lunch right now.

This _so_ rocks.
posted by cCranium at 9:45 AM on January 26, 2001

It would be really cool, Matt, if you could set a cookie anytime someone chooses one of the sort by's in the dropdown, and then have the home page check that cookie and sort accordingly every time it is loaded. As it is, if I click on the metafilter link in the upper left of the screen (as I always do) to go home, I then have to re-select from the drop down to get the sort by "recent comments" every time.

I realize that I could use the back button instead of clicking on the link to get home, but I like to follow links on dynamic sites such as this so I am sure I am always getting the most recent info....
posted by ericost at 10:12 AM on January 26, 2001

yeah eric, it would be pretty easy to cookie folks. Let me do that (and see how many people freak out when it "sticks" on them, heh).
posted by mathowie (staff) at 11:08 AM on January 26, 2001

Sweeeeeeeeet!
posted by thirteen at 11:22 AM on January 26, 2001

Just hope this place doesn't turn into freep with people "bump"-ing threads so they'll stay at the top. :)
posted by zempf at 12:29 PM on January 26, 2001

freep? The Detroit Free Press?

posted by ericost at 12:58 PM on January 26, 2001

Nope, Free Republic, known for bulletin boards that make Atilla the Hun look like a raving leftist.
posted by harmful at 2:14 PM on January 26, 2001

Very nice, Matt and Eric! Now, how much trouble would it be to put the remaining threads below the top commented 20, in their ordinary chronological order?

(OT: Coming late to the party, I never realized Eric was in St. Louis. Yay for the midwest, another talented dude in our midst!)
posted by bradlands at 3:47 PM on January 26, 2001

Is it just me, or do the "X new comments" indicators not change in the "most recent" view?
posted by kindall at 5:15 PM on January 26, 2001

Ok, the cookie idea Eric had above is now working. Once you use the pulldown, the cookie gets set. Subsequent visits to MetaFilter's index page default to that view, if you want to change it, just use the pull down.
posted by mathowie (staff) at 5:37 PM on January 26, 2001

(OT response: Hi Brad. Not in St. Louis for long, hopefully :( We just made a preliminary offer on a couple of buildings in Astoria, Queens. Wish us luck!)
posted by ericost at 6:24 PM on January 26, 2001

my ideal layout would be all new posts at the top followed by the rest of the posts in most-recent-comments first order.
posted by palegirl at 5:26 PM on January 27, 2001

Are things bubbling up correctly? At 4:44pm I posted a comment in this thread. Yet, if I sort my recent comments, that thread does not appear. The thread was originally posted at 4:35 PM PST on the 26th so it has just scrolled off the list by date (at least for me, since I do past two days).
posted by gluechunk at 5:59 PM on January 28, 2001

Ok, nevermind. I see how it works now. If I set it for the past 3 days then the thread appears. I originally thought that a thread would bubble up no matter what its age was. Sorry.
posted by gluechunk at 6:02 PM on January 28, 2001

I like palegirl's idea.
posted by rodii at 6:25 PM on January 28, 2001

Would there be any way to include recently posted items (with zero comments) in the "recent comments" sort? Not everyone would want this so could it be a customized thing?

I find myself flipping to By Date just to see if there have been recent threads that don't have comments on them yet. If everyone viewed by only recent comments, would any of us see new threads?
posted by gluechunk at 1:34 PM on January 29, 2001

Me too. In fact, today the new threads seem to have overwhelmed the "recent comments" limit of 20. How about sorting by "most recent activity" (link OR comment)?
posted by rodii at 4:44 PM on January 29, 2001