MetaTalk

As I don't have a forum for myself anymore, I thought I'd throw an obscure post into metafilter to see if anyone bites.

As you may or may not know, I've started an novel online... now, I was wondering what the interest would be in setting up a system where anyone could create an account and their own books (main advantage being ability to get instant feedback and edit anywhere). I've already set up a CMS with full CM pages. But if I made it public, would people come? It's not quite a journal, not a blog, and while some of the features are similar, there's different stuff behind this.

What do people think?
posted by Neale to Feature Requests at 5:04 PM PST - 7 comments

I just noticed that the customize page lets you add a blurb....however, once you add the blurb and go to check your updates, you still see all that intro text which I think is unecessary and splits up user info unecessarily. Esp.since it's in bold, which my user info is not. Can this goaway? Other people's thoughts?
posted by jessamyn to MetaFilter-Related at 11:40 AM PST - 4 comments

The San Francisco Chronicle tech critic on weblogs.

As the pool of blog writers has grown, perhaps inevitably so have complaints about quality. It's true that some bloggers seem to feel the need to log every sneeze.

But even drivel has its readership, Fake says. "Sure there are a hundred teenage boys typing, 'I'm bored. School sucks' every three hours, but their friends read them -- and that's their intended audience."

Amen.
posted by bradlands to General Weblog-Related at 8:17 AM PST - 1 comment

This afternoon or evening, the member with user number 4000 will join MetaFilter. Will they win anything? Should they win anything? Suggestions? (What about one free double post?)
posted by iceberg273 to MetaFilter-Related at 7:57 AM PST - 11 comments

Is anyone else having trouble with the My Comments sorting option disappearing?
posted by rcade to Bugs at 7:05 AM PST - 5 comments

Elsewhere, Gluechunk said: One thing I've been doing lately is going back into the archives to read threads/posts from exactly a year ago.

Neat idea. How 'bout a link for it, Matt? Yeah, I could go into the archives, but I think it'd be neat to click somewhere on the front page and go to the MeFi front page from exactly a year ago. Of course, I don't quite know where you'd put the link. It sometimes seems too cluttered up there already. Maybe it would be good for an occasional "Classic MeFi Thread" anniversary. Anyway, just a thought.
posted by Lirp to Feature Requests at 4:02 PM PST - 5 comments

Directly arising from a thread that I posted on Metafilter about the pill and its effect on mate choice, another question arrives inexorably - I found the article in question via Plastic.com - which as we all know is the 'Metafilter it's not OK to like'. I suppose this is an issue of etiquette or policy - is it appropriate to post stories for discussion here which have already been covered there?
posted by barbelith to Etiquette/Policy at 2:35 PM PST - 8 comments

Anyone remember the brief thread on ISSNs for blogs? I didn't either, until I got mine this morning (I'm number 1534-0015). Did anyone else get one of these?
posted by norm to Bugs at 8:23 AM PST - 4 comments

The spellcheck function still appears to be dead. I saw that Thirteen already mentioned it but thought I might go ahead and mention it again.

It was a pretty cool feature. Now it just bugs me. :)
posted by amanda to Bugs at 9:21 AM PST - 5 comments

I think I fixed the sessioning. I reworked a lot of code tonight, and tested it, and I think I got it working correctly. Here's what's going on: you come to metafilter for the first time today, it says 3 new links and 24 new comments. You read the site, hitting the index page as many times as you want, and you'll never lose that 3 links and 24 comments status.

then you go away for a few hours, and you come back. it should say "1 new link and 13 new comments" (if that much changed between visits), and it should remain that way until you go away for over 15 minutes.

Now, the only place where this will be screwed up, is when you hit the site within 15 minutes from your last visit. That way, the session won't die and it won't update your last visit time.

I also got rid of the new window thing, and the double arrow things, since you won't lose state if you jump directly into a thread.

Let me know if you find any problems.
posted by mathowie to MetaFilter-Related at 1:05 AM PST - 26 comments

Wierdness. I'm logged in and all, but comments are always staying "new." I've tried logging in, then out, then back in again, trying refreshing the home page, closing broswer, nothing. My cookie settings are all on "accept." I'll read a discussion, go back to the home page, and all the topics still stay the same number of "new" comments. Anyone else having this problem? I'm using IE 5.0, Win98.
posted by gramcracker to Bugs at 12:34 AM PST - 1 comment

Like the ability to click on (2 new ») etc to get to new comments. Don't think the » is necessary. That is all.
posted by lbergstr to MetaFilter-Related at 3:09 PM PST - 20 comments

This is another request regarding the way threads are sorted. Its would be a little more tricky than the sorts implemented thus far, but I would guess its definately possible (I'm consdering doing this on my site). I really like this idea, but I don't recall seeing it in use anywhere before. Anyway, it goes something like this:

1) THREAD SORTING
a. new threads (to each particular visitor) appear at the top of page, with slightly different background color to differentiate them from the rest
b. old threads with new comments follow (posts with the most new comments first, or something like this)
c. last comes the threads with no new comments since last visit, displayed in the order they were actually posted.


Just a little something I was thinking about. It seems to me like it would be a nice way to sort out threads. Would anybody agree with me on this one? Has anybody seen something similar implemented on other sites?
posted by howa2396 to Feature Requests at 4:19 PM PST - 3 comments

Is it possible in the customization to enter each thread where the new comments begin? I have mentioned before that I'm not a programmer, so that's my excuse if this is a stupid question.
posted by norm to Feature Requests at 4:52 PM PST - 24 comments

January stats, in case you were wondering.
posted by mathowie to MetaFilter-Related at 11:41 PM PST - 15 comments

Hey, Matt, you've got some sort of bugs flying around on the front page :)
posted by sonofsamiam to Bugs at 12:48 PM PST - 0 comments

"Can't you folks simply address an issue and tell us what you think without attacking the poster rather than what has been posted?" A few threads have featured variations on this sentiment, so I figured the subject was worth a longer look here.
posted by rcade to Etiquette/Policy at 11:04 AM PST - 23 comments

"Can't you folks simply address an issue and tell us what you think without attacking the poster rather than what has been posted?" A few threads have featured variations on this sentiment, so I figured the subject was worth a longer look here.
posted by rcade to Bugs at 11:01 AM PST - 1 comment

Pointed out in this thread, is there any easy way to incorporate a twit filter -- a feature on old BBS offline readers, which simply didn't display the messages posted by particular users?
posted by crunchland to Feature Requests at 9:13 AM PST - 2 comments

Sideblog response: Pay to lose the cupids? I say pay to have more holiday specific DHTML effects!!!
posted by tomalak to MetaFilter-Related at 7:59 AM PST - 5 comments

Since I like links over drop-down menus, I'd like to see links in the "There have been 2 links and 21 comments posted since your last visit" sentence. For example, if I visit MeFi and my default sort is by most comments, I could click on "2 links" and have it sort by date. Or, I could click on "21 comments" and have it sort by recent comments.
posted by gluechunk to Feature Requests at 4:50 PM PST - 2 comments

I've made mumblings about this elsewhere, but I'm trying to compile a MetaFilter FAQ in the hopes that it'll help new users figure out just what the heck's going on here. Unfortunately, I'm pretty sure I don't know everything. You can find the raw XML file here. If there's anything you'd like to add, or seek clarification on or wish you'd known about when you started joining in the conversations, please let me know.

Also, let me know your MeFi username, e-mail address and URL (if you feel like sharing) so I can give credit where credit's due.
posted by cCranium to MetaFilter-Related at 6:01 PM PST - 17 comments

For the past several days, links on both MeFi and MetaTalk have been appearing as default blue. At first I thought this was a design decision (though they're devilish hard to see against the MeFi background), but apparently the color change hasn't happened for Windows browsers (I use IE5 for the Mac). What's up?
posted by redfoxtail to Bugs at 5:57 PM PST - 4 comments

Matt, you should put a contribute link on the main menu bar. I mostly use Netscape, and was not paying attention the Amazon disscussion. I only noticed the link on the blue sidebar when I launched Explorer to check out another page, and it defaulted to Metafilter. Might be a more offical place to encourage people to help out more frequently.
posted by thirteen to Bugs at 2:07 PM PST - 9 comments

Don't know if it's a bug or just something I'm doing wrong, but when I try to go to the 5k site, it wants me to log in & even tells me I can use my MeFi ID there. Well, I tried to login, but it tells me I have the wrong password for my username (and yes, I checked, it's the same password that MeFi lets me log in with).. is something not right there?
posted by zempf to Bugs at 6:44 PM PST - 4 comments

A question on the Recent Comments feature: how far back in time does it traverse?
posted by hijinx to MetaFilter-Related at 1:01 PM PST - 5 comments

Is spellchecker.net dead? I have not been able to get the feature to work for the last 2 days, and I cannpt bring up the page.
posted by thirteen to Bugs at 8:59 AM PST - 4 comments

In-thread graphics always get wonky on my Mac's Netscape. In this case, it's the Amazon graphic. Not only does it cover up other text, but it doesn't let me click on it. Any chance a plan-text link can be posted?
posted by luke to Bugs at 8:29 AM PST - 3 comments

Matt, in view of the sideblog link you posted to the "other" Metafilter, have you ever considered doing anything about getting ownership of the name? I hate to sound like an IP vulture, but what if someone else decides to start a MetaFilter a la the "other" /usr/bin/girl? Or, what's worse, does that and decides to prevent *you* from using it? It's an evil world out there. Is there an issue here?
posted by rodii to MetaFilter-Related at 7:49 AM PST - 10 comments

Anyone with that oh so elusive 'inside knowledge' know what going on with SXSWB?
posted by alana to General Weblog-Related at 10:42 PM PST - 3 comments

I run at work on a crappy computer with Netscape 4.5 (ewww)and have noticed recently that when I preview a comment of mine, not only is there no editing text below the preview (it was like that before), but now when I hit "back" it loses what I typed. To make it suck even more, I copy my previous text from the preview and paste it in the text box and it is unformatted and I have to go fix spaces and line breaks. What gives?
posted by norm to Bugs at 8:25 AM PST - 18 comments

I note a new option on the pulldown: "My Comments". I just thought I should point out, though, that it didn't appear until after I'd selected some other option first: that is, the menu only had three options on it the first time.

Nifty, though.

(NS4.76/Linux RH6.2/KDE)
posted by baylink to Bugs at 12:24 PM PST - 0 comments

And so it has been a week since the suggestion of a voluntary moratorium was proposed and discussed in this thread. Any thoughts about whether a discussion of MeFi protocol should be presented on the home page, or is everything fine and dandy?
posted by Avogadro to MetaFilter-Related at 7:32 PM PST - 10 comments

What is the record for posts on a topic? Is "Ev explains the Pyra situation" coming close to breaking the record?
posted by timothompson to MetaFilter-Related at 2:02 PM PST - 12 comments

Nice job with the style-ized scrollbars in IE, Matt. Very slick.
posted by tomorama to Bugs at 11:12 AM PST - 18 comments

OK, suppose I wanted to create a blog on a LAN, so it would not be available to the outside world. Is there a desktop app that will do what Blogger does? Thoughts?
posted by jpoulos to General Weblog-Related at 8:15 AM PST - 4 comments

So, um, the MetaFilter box may be moving soon. I can bring it home and host it off my DSL (upgrading the upload line to 384kbps), but it'll be slightly slower than the shared T1 we had at Pyra. If anyone has any ideas for budget rackspace or has some bandwidth to spare, let me know here or via email, thanks.

I'll give warning if/when it moves, but expect 24-48 hours of downtime when that takes place (and to the 15 other domains I host on the same box).
posted by mathowie to Uptime at 12:30 AM PST - 14 comments

A few weeks ago I relaunched a web site that had been dead for 11 months. Because, like so many blogs, the site revolves around finding interesting bits elsewhere (in this case extracts or quotes), the re-launch involved going back through the source links I had left over from the site's previous life... [more]
posted by Mo Nickels to General Weblog-Related at 11:38 AM PST - 11 comments

I'm now allowing a sort by most commented to, and it goes back as many days as you set in your preferences (or 7 days by default). This option is not cookied though, I didn't see the need, since it's more of a view than a permanent sort type. So if you go into a thread, then click the Metafilter graphic or home link, you'll go back to whatever default sort you were last cookied to. Is that confusing enough? Just use it, if you find errors or wish it did something more, say something here.

The other new sorting method, by My Comments, looks into the database for all the threads you participated in, over the past few days (as many as you show on the front page). Like the other method (most commented), this one does not get cookied, because it's more of a temporary view.

When I first hit metafilter, I view by date, if I see something interesting, I comment. Later that day, I might check most recently commented to see where the action is, and then I might hit "my comments" to see what's happened on the threads I left comments in.

I can easily take off the date restrictions on both options, so it's more of a "all time" done only 20 at a time, but I'm going to leave these as is before I add two more new options.
posted by mathowie to Feature Requests at 2:19 AM PST - 10 comments