MetaTalk

While catching up with the latest politics megathread, I was surprised to see this mod note from LobsterMitten: [Note about post drafts - putting here so people will see it, but happy to talk it over more in email, will email some of the recent posters. Please keep the posts on the shorter side, maybe 1000 words or that neighborhood. Thanks.] As a longtime crafter of megaposts, I don't think I've ever seen official mod guidance to cut them (relatively) short in this way. Posts have been edited for leaving too much above the fold, but I can think of only a handful of incidents where the post body itself got official pushback for being Too Long -- and those largely involved novella-sized posts with length-induced display errors (really) or blanket copy-pasting a website's contents. Is LobsterMitten's advice targeted at the political megathreads only -- perhaps for performance reasons -- or should it be construed more broadly? I happen to think a well-organized megapost is the best of MeFi and a feature few vid- and listicle-driven sites can match, and in the case of the politics threads specifically they're a fine example of community collaboration that provide a valuable curated record of this chaotic era. But what do you think?
posted by Rhaomi on Apr 17, 2019 - 48 comments

I love megaposts. So I made an index of megaposts with more than about 900 words. [more inside]
posted by not_the_water on Feb 7, 2018 - 39 comments

I've joined many web communities in my life, but none for as long or as wholeheartedly as MetaFilter. I've learned a lot, grown as a person, and taken direction from the thousands of smart, funny, and caring people who write here. And I've been inspired to write, too, putting more time and effort into researching worthwhile posts than I have at any other creative hobby. Sadly, what with work and the news chaos and competing interests it feels like there's less and less time to focus lately, and seeing linkrot erode what I do post is a drag. So when showbiz_liz's lovely celebration of ten years on the blue made me realize my own 10th Mefiversary was approaching, I was moved to do something about it. Nothing on the web lasts forever, but armed with old notes files, the Wayback Machine, and a drive to rediscover my own personal Best of the Web, I plowed through all 149 posts (and a few comments) to recover lost links, check on what had happened since, and organize it all into a single FPP omnibus for your reading pleasure. [more inside]
posted by Rhaomi on Oct 29, 2017 - 28 comments

So, even outside of election years browser crushing 3000+ post megathreads are now a not uncommon thing - should we be looking at pagination at the 2000 comment mark? And if not pagination what else could be done to make them less of a browser crushing experience, especially on mobile?
posted by Artw on Apr 18, 2013 - 93 comments