Tracking AskMe Posts That Have Left Frontpage

March 3, 2005 12:45 PM

With the rate that ask mefi threads scroll off the main green page, how about a mechanism that allows for the easy retrieval and spotting of updates the threads that have scrolled off -- one that doesn't require searching through the archives. When someone updates a thread that is no longer on the front page, it shows up as an entry on an UPDATE page, the link to which would appear on the top of the main green page and never scrolls off... [+]
posted by crunchland to Feature Requests at 12:45 PM (8 comments total)

... and the contents would be along the lines of :

Computers
Re: Converting Windows Event Viewer log files on a *nix platform?
GrumbledyPoo said : "Blah blah blah...." March 2, 2005 at 1:57 PM PST

food & drink
Re: Tasty leek recipes?
Fizzle-Wizzle Bing-Bang said "Grumble, brumble, piddley-poo...." March 2, 2005 at 2:03 AM PST
Grambly-Poombly Ding-Dang added "Fishie wishie toadley bomb..." February 27, 2005 at 6:52 PM PST

I would bet that it would be easily generated using some sort of database query. The information in the RE: field is taken from the title tag of the original askme thread. The text of the addition could even be the first 100 characters of the new reply, or the whole reply

As it is, it's a bit of a pain to go back into the archives if you have new information to add, and even if you do, it's unlikely anyone else is going to go back and read what you add unless there is some simple way to check.

I don't know if this is the best solution for it, but there is definitely a need for some sort of mechanism to update long scrolled off askme threads and have that update be flagged and easily read by everyone. And most articles would never be updated. Like the ones where someone asks a question and gets their succinct answer 12 minutes later. One would think that there are some topics which might require more than 24 or 48 hours to address.
posted by crunchland at 12:45 PM on March 3, 2005

In general, an alternative view that would show all recently updated threads in both MeFi and AskMe would probably be a welcome feature. That might encourage people to continue ongoing discussions in one place, rather, than say, starting a new thread every day on [insert news-topic-du-jour here].

The default view should remain constant, since if I'm more interested in the links (on Mefi), I'm not constantly stuck looking at the ongoing conversations. This might be a nice way of satisfying the "is MeFi about the links or the discussions?" debate. One view emphasizes links, and the other view emphasizes discussions.
posted by casu marzu at 1:04 PM on March 3, 2005

MeFi has this; it's called "sort by recent comments." Add this to AskMefi, and I think the problem is solved.
posted by monju_bosatsu at 1:28 PM on March 3, 2005

fishie-wishie toadley bomb

This made my day. I'm not sure why.

And crunch, here are two more votes for some version of this idea.
posted by googly at 2:08 PM on March 3, 2005

I'm with casa marzu on this one -- it'd be great to facilitate discussions in the blue that have been FPP'd off the map.
posted by undule at 3:14 PM on March 3, 2005

Matt's aware of the need for this pony. Several people in that thread had sidebary suggestions.
posted by Mitheral at 6:07 PM on March 3, 2005

I'm with casa marzu on this one -- it'd be great to facilitate discussions in the blue that have been FPP'd off the map.

uh, I guess I'm with monju then. It is already there.

I was just thinking that I wish there were the same sorting options in the green, though.
posted by mdn at 7:25 PM on March 3, 2005

I'm with monju too. I, umm, hadn't noticed that. D'oh!

Although I'm guessing that people who post new NewsFilter every day on the same topics didn't notice either. Disclaimer: this doesn't seem to have been a huge problem of late. And I think the Gannon thread, with everyone keeping the discussion in one place, is a good precedent.
posted by casu marzu at 6:23 AM on March 4, 2005