I do agree that if there is another mod, we need someone from the Asia/Australia region.

And the very next post is from flapjax.
posted to MetaTalk by winston at 7:08 AM on May 19, 2008

The resurrection of Hitler?
posted to MetaTalk by winston at 7:15 PM on March 22, 2008

miss lynnster, would you have listened to yourself? (or should that be: Will you would have listened to yourself?)
posted to MetaTalk by winston at 7:51 AM on March 19, 2008

The user was required to provide an email address when they signed up. They were asked whether this should be displayed to others and they chose "no." I think it would cheese most of them off if it was displayed to others in any format.
posted to MetaTalk by winston at 11:52 AM on August 11, 2007

psmealy: here's the formula
posted to MetaTalk by winston at 4:39 AM on August 3, 2007

Well, to be fair, I think people use a jokey/vague/generic title because it doesn't appear on the front page.
posted to MetaTalk by winston at 9:15 PM on July 31, 2007

I don't really know what software it was

There is nothing in the askme post that suggests that the poster does not know what software it was.
posted to MetaTalk by winston at 2:17 PM on July 17, 2007

advil and chrismear, you've got another disc coming from me yet at least (mea culpa).
posted to MetaTalk by winston at 7:58 PM on May 19, 2007

Yes. I would expect that, before the change, the percentage of questions asked by people who had asked a question within the previous 14 days was very small.

However, the quality of the response to questions seems to be excellent either way. The only reason to reduce the number of questions seems to be the idea that any one user should be able to read all the questions.
posted to MetaTalk by winston at 10:12 PM on January 2, 2007

delmoi: I actually stopped reading ask a while ago just because the volume was so high.

mediareport: I really don't get this at all. What's so hard about scrolling back through a 2nd or 3rd page of questions?

Or why do you need to read all the questions? What's the difference between reading 20 questions a day when that's all of them and 20 questions a day when there are 100 posted per day?... [more]
posted to MetaTalk by winston at 2:27 PM on December 18, 2006

The point is, to provide better answers, we want more users to see each question.

Yes, there is a point at which too many questions will reduce the quality of the answers. But that doesn't mean that it's necessary for every reader to see every question -- or even anywhere close to that.

I don't see any evidence that the number of questions has reduced the quality of the answers -- and i don't even see anyone in this thread arguing that it has.
posted to MetaTalk by winston at 5:08 PM on December 18, 2006

Now I'm curious. What percentage of the questions are asked by users who have asked a question within the previous 14 days?
posted to MetaTalk by winston at 8:26 PM on December 18, 2006

I second the request. Sure there are workarounds, but having it done in place on the page would be best. Youtube has a bit of AJAXiness that allows you to add something to favorites or a playlist without navagating away from the page, so how hard can it be?
posted to MetaTalk by winston at 1:04 PM on December 15, 2006

So the magical middle click sounds wonderful, but I still don't know what it is.

Pushing the middle button on a three-button mouse.
posted to MetaTalk by winston at 11:42 PM on December 15, 2006

(do you need someone to mail you a mouse from Staples?)
posted to MetaTalk by winston at 11:50 PM on December 15, 2006

all the way to New Zealand, winston?

Well, that would be the point, wouldn't it? I still only have to bring it to the mailbox.
posted to MetaTalk by winston at 4:55 AM on December 16, 2006

I gave last week. Does that count?
posted to MetaTalk by winston at 6:04 PM on December 14, 2006

Well, when the client computer is connected to the web server the server "knows" the client's IP address -- but that doesn't mean it creates any record of it. If something's just being done in memory and not written to the hard drive, the information is basically gone once the task is complete.

Sounds like last.fm logs the IP address someplace but not with timestamps.
posted to MetaTalk by winston at 8:17 PM on December 12, 2006

How many does it take before you have to wear the same pants for the rest of your life?
posted to MetaTalk by winston at 8:53 PM on December 2, 2006

It might be different for different types of questions. The people who can answer questions about taxes might tend to be online at a different time than people who can answer questions about videogames.
posted to MetaTalk by winston at 7:04 AM on December 2, 2006

Yeah, the post could have done a much better job of framing the link[...]This video clip is a cool example of something that has been suppressed by a media corporation for the last decade-and-a-half surfacing for public viewing on a user-contribution-based site.It's not a matter of framing. What is now being called the point of the post was absent from the post altogether and cannot be inferred from the post. The post as written is newsfilter and 14-year... [more]
posted to MetaTalk by winston at 10:23 PM on November 28, 2006

Nobody uses the 'Tags' page.

Except for people who are seeking out a tag-related feature.
posted to MetaTalk by winston at 7:10 AM on November 17, 2006

This is an Internet Explorer feature (and the default behaviour).

I'm not seeing this in FireFox nor IE (with settings changed)

Are you sure it's only happening on MeFi?
posted to MetaTalk by winston at 6:39 AM on November 16, 2006

2) It depends on the question. If it's a technical question with only one right answer, then there's usually not much point in repeating it (unless there are other responses that confuse the issue). On the other hand, for a "Should I or shouldn't I" (ask her out / accept this job / etc.) question, you can have many useful responses on each side (yes and no).
posted to MetaTalk by winston at 9:21 PM on November 12, 2006

So, we should have a mandatory expiration, which can be circumvented by the user - which they would undoubtably do if the job wasn't filled

Exactly

which totally defeats the purpose of having an expiration?

Not at all. The point of the expiration would be to remove the filled jobs (even if the poster doesn't remove them). I would assume that the vast majority of postings over 30... [more]
posted to MetaTalk by winston at 2:39 PM on November 12, 2006

Don't think about a shout out without one
posted to MetaTalk by winston at 1:14 PM on November 12, 2006

No doubt about it, a shout out without one has less clout
posted to MetaTalk by winston at 1:15 PM on November 12, 2006

No doubt about it, it's a rule you can't flout
You might as well tout it, there's no reason to pout.
If you shout out without it, you have less clout
We all want to tout it, because... um, it prevents gout?
posted to MetaTalk by winston at 1:24 PM on November 12, 2006

One

Two
posted to MetaTalk by winston at 8:15 PM on November 10, 2006

Hm. Another maybe
posted to MetaTalk by winston at 6:04 PM on November 10, 2006

Also, it was a private newspaper aimed at military, not the military itself.

A private newspaper which has already called for Rumsfeld's resignation in the past, if I understand correctly.
posted to MetaTalk by winston at 10:23 AM on November 6, 2006

I'm a blissfully ignorant non-American so I'll just use a random number generator (and a few arbitrary decisions).

Okay, random number between 1 and 33 for the number of Democrats winning Senate races: 23. Flip a coin to find out if there will be an independent: Yes.

So that makes 50 D, 49 R, 1 I

Random number between 1 and 435 for Democrats in the House: 266 (got 328 on the first try and decided to keep going until I... [more]
posted to MetaTalk by winston at 12:04 PM on November 2, 2006

(doh! forgot to spell-check)
posted to MetaTalk by winston at 12:05 PM on November 2, 2006

Rs maintain Senate but Ds have a voting majority unless Joe goes R, 50-49-2.

Hm. Except that this adds up to 101 instead of 100. If the Rs have 50 then Ds+Joe can't be more than 50.

I guess it's a problem with averaging + rounding. Similarly, your House adds up to 437 (or 438) instead of 435. (Now that I scroll back through the posts, it looks like there are a number of them that don't add up to 435, so that's probably where this problem comes from)
posted to MetaTalk by winston at 7:43 PM on November 4, 2006

Maybe I'm weird. It made me giggle out loud when I thought of it.
posted to MetaTalk by winston at 9:22 AM on October 26, 2006

FWIW, E.E. Cummings did not want his name printed in all lower case. It was a cutesy thing that the publishers did, to which Cummings objected. (wikipedia citation)</derail>
posted to MetaTalk by winston at 7:51 PM on October 16, 2006

If you zoom in far enough, the jobs won't be on top of each other anymore (unless they're at the exact same address).
posted to MetaTalk by winston at 7:53 PM on September 1, 2006

Also stuff to come: filter the front page to within 50 miles of you

What would be more useful for me is to be able to sort the postings in order of distance, nearest first, instead of by date.

Anyway, thanks for this.
posted to MetaTalk by winston at 7:11 PM on August 29, 2006

I wonder if it's different for different questions. Maybe the people who can answer questions about video games tend to read mefi at different times than the people who can answer questions about taxes.
posted to MetaTalk by winston at 11:10 AM on March 16, 2005

Well, technically, the posts don't get deleted. It's just the link from the front page that's removed. I wouldn't expect the tags to disappear.
posted to MetaTalk by winston at 11:02 AM on March 16, 2005

Hm. I posted the Lloyd Axworthy story and I thought the discussion was quite good. Sure when you post anything about someone well-known someone's going to say "I hate him" but I think the signal-to-noise ratio in this type of discussion is better on metafilter than almost anywhere else on the web. I don't see how it can be much better actually.
posted to MetaTalk by winston at 11:18 AM on March 4, 2005

(talking to myself)

If someone makes unwarranted assertions in a discussion, it's up to the other people in the discussion to call him/her on it. That's what discussion is for. I don't think you can prevent it from happening in the first place
posted to MetaTalk by winston at 11:20 AM on March 4, 2005

Sometimes the best policy is to ignore such posts

That too. Either way the way to deal with (allegedly) inappropriate comments is within the discussion itself -- whether debunking or ignoring or whatever. Just as you would if someone said these things to you in person. There's no technical or procedural way to prevent them (and still allow all the good comments)
posted to MetaTalk by winston at 5:05 PM on March 4, 2005