October 28, 2004

Curious, George: ponies. I'd like to know: what kind of features do you think would make Monkeyfilter even more delicious?
  • Yeah, I know, it's semi-legitimate for me to post blatant request for request for features. But what the Hell, tracy's blog is down. (the comment part, at least). So, what's makes you go "yeah, that'd be nice"?
  • 0_o I just posted in her blog not ten minutes ago. Pony: FAQ on creating my own stylesheet. Big Fat Pony: Chat, maybe? It would allow for some other comunications that aren't really forum appropriate. Like when a couple people get sidetracked by a comment, and want to have a side discusion off topic. It also might be a nice, nonpermanent place to take disputes. (I don't particularly want the big fat pony, but "yeah, that'd be nice")
  • This is a good place to ask, as not everyone might see tracy's blog. That said, I like everything fine, though other people might be happy if I had access to a spell-check :) Of course, if I don't have one, then I don't have to bother using it - :D
  • Chat, maybe? Had it for months. Nobody uses it.
  • Speelcheck would be awesome. Good thinking. Had it for months Really? Where's it at?
  • Where's that chat at, not the spellcheck.
  • Heer.
  • Thanks for reminding me of #mofirc. I read about it in the FAQ in the beginning but never checked out the irc tutorial. If no one uses it though, I'm not sure I want to try out a new chatting technology to chat with myself. I tried that on AIM by signing up for 2 different accounts and the fun was over after a couple minutes.
  • Wow, look at all the comment spam in the thread. Assholes.
  • How about something simple like clicking on the 'x new' comments link taking you to the new comments?
  • Well, I'm on #mofirc.
  • SC: yes, that's a good idea. And simple, we just have to add min(commentid) as first_new_comment to our sql query. Or something.
  • I downloaded ChatZilla and I'm stuck on "register a nickname. This is done by sending a registration command to 'NickServ'." I'll try to figure it out tomorrow when I have more time to read that long-ass tutorial. At the moment, however, I feel like I've failed the entrance exam.
  • A nice pony would probably be to convince Carl to give us something like http://chat.plastic.com. Okay, don't go there, you'll annoy our plastic pals to no end. But it's an IRC chat with a good web interface.
  • PY: what about mirc? * Install * Run * /server irc.slashnet.org * /nick whatever * /j mofirc
  • Can I have a tractor?
  • Wolof: sure.
  • Very nice tractor!
  • Soviet tractor? I was intending to look at putting one of the good, free, spell-check enabled WYSIWYG HTML editors into MoFi's comment interface, but because I'm a lazy twat I never got around to it. Since you're a lot less lazy than me 8), you could look at HTMLArea which works for Moz and IE in the newer versions, or Vietdev's Typetool. If I were to do it, I'd probably make use configurable. Sinple enable/disable of accounts for Monkeybashi might be nice. And using the power of SQL to produce some simple monthly stats (top posters, et al), would be neat.
  • *WARNING* bad, inaccurate sql poetry ahead. SELECT COUNT(commentid) as asshatery u.username FROM 1_comments as c 1_users as u WHERE c.timestamp u.userid=c.userid BETWEEN $month_start AND $month_end group by userid sort by asshatery desc;
  • I'd like to be able to search for posts by user. Like on mefi, I can search through all of Crunchlands posts for some specific flash game or whatever. I'd like to be able to do that here. Like if I want to know why Nostril is apologizing for being cranky, I'd have an easier way of doing it. Also, given how things have changed since the big crash, are we able to search for all comments by a user or is that asking way too much?
  • I stuck my head in the door of #mofirc a few times, but gave up after a little while when the only one to talk to was me. But if Monkeys are actually going to start using it, I could probably persuade myself to show up periodically again. And more often than that once all the rest of my midterm projects and photography projects are out of the way. As for a pony, I would love to be able to use inline images rather than posting links to images. I'm sure my nattering about this comes as a huge surprise to everyone.
  • I would love to be able to use inline images I'm guessing you know what the problem is here. Remember how we just changed hosts?
  • If you use Google's advanced search, and specify monkefilter.com as the site to search, you can retrieve all the comments made by the user you're looking for. it's a wee bit tedious, but it works. However, it'll also draw out comments where the user is mentioned as well.
  • Wolof: Yeah, I do know about bandwidth issues. I understand why it's not there, and not likely to be. I just tend to treat these things like I used to my Christmas lists as a kid... some things that my folks would actually be able to afford, and then everything that I knew was out of reach, just because it was fun to daydream for a short time that it could happen. Same thing with the inline images here. Most of my stuff would probably still be links anyway. I wouldn't want to fill up pages with 800x600, or larger, jpeg images. With links to the large stuff (and that's mostly what I do) at least Monkeys who are on dialup aren't stuck waiting for things to download unless they actually want to look. So, yeah, I don't expect it, and know it's not really feasible. But it's still a "wouldn't it be nice if..."
  • Hey, I'm just saying. I think it would be nice too, but it lays our gracious hosts open to a whole new level of bandwidth poo issues. What I said upthread was in no way meant personally.
  • I'd like all users' comments to be prefaced with the mantra "AUM, I worship the all-powerful quidnunc, the desire-yielding lotus who is venerated by all existing beings, whose presence makes the deer forget it's own self and the cow produce more milk, who blows his transcendental conch to stimulate the ganglia of his devotees, AUM". Just make it a button or something. Thanks.
  • Wouldn't images have zero affect on Tracy's bandwidth usage, as they'd be hosted elsewhere?
  • Extend the available html commands in posts? Missed out on using marquee and blink in the CAPSLOCK DAY THREAD. On second thought maybe not a good idea ... heh. The jump to most recent comments is a good idea. I need a think first before posting button, something like, "do you really want to post that?" I've checked the irc server a few times to see if anyone is around. Poked my head in once. PY all I did was type, /nick (nic here) to create a user name in chatzilla once I was connected to a irc server. If you get the popup box just add one there. Last alternative is go to: tools > options > global settings and add a nickname (its under the "general" tab in the chatzilla window). Once you've done it once more than likely wont have to do it again next time you connect with the server.
  • 1. User style-sheets. This is really trivial: just add a VARCHAR to user profiles that is interpreted as a URL. 2. Comment threading with 'collapse thread' feature. On the database back-end requires adding a 'reply-to' field to each comment. On the front-end requires some fairly simple PHP code to re-create the comment tree, and some static Javascript to add collapsible divs. 3. Allow the following tags: <q>, <abbr>, <sub>, <sup>, <code>, <big>. These are all standard XHTML1.1 phrase elements. I would also recommend <img>, though it can make life harder for dialup users. 4. Extend the posts on the sidebar with a 'watched posts' group. Now that we get multiple dozens of posts every day, it is quite a nuisance to keep scrolling the page to see where there are new comments. One could, of course, increase the number of things on the sidebar to some large number (mine's at 400), but it just adds needless pressure on the database. There is an easy and a hard way to add this feature. The easy way is to keep the watched thread ids in a cookie. This will limit the number of watchable threads, but maybe that's a good side-effect. The hard way is to add a watched-threads table in the back-end. This can be abused if someone watches every thread, but one hopes that such users are few and far between. A great possibility with this approach is that we can trivially add logarithmic decay to the watchlist: posts that one hasn't seen in a while will go lower in the watchlist and eventually disappear. It goes without saying that I'll be happy to help implement any of these.
  • AUM, I worship the all-powerful quidnunc, the desire-yielding lotus who is venerated by all existing beings, whose presence makes the deer forget it's own self and the cow produce more milk, who blows his transcendental conch to stimulate the ganglia of his devotees, AUM Wolof: I know you didn't mean it personally. I'm sorry if I came across as if I were offended or irritated. It was a long day today, and I probably could have phrased all of that better. It was just meant as an explanation of why I was nattering about inline images even though I know there are difficulties involved with the proposition. If this sounds offended/irritated/defensive as well, please write that off to the day I had also. Sorry that I phrased things so badly.
  • Hey, how did THAT get in there? quidnunc, did you bribe Monkeybashi to get your pony so quickly?
  • fuyugare , I'm not convinced that comment threading is a good idea. It's harder to read a non-linear conversation. Threading often (Slashdot, K5) leads to both wildly off-topic digressions, and to duplication of ideas. It could change the entire culture and tone of the site. Plus, it would make it much harder to find the good stuff.
  • What about adding a star or something next to the threads you've participated in before, in the sidebar? This way, you'll be more likely to visit threads you've already posted in and thus further the discussion even more. It would be a bit similar to some BB alerting system, but wouldn't require much in terms of PHP or MySql.
  • In a linear setting, on the other hand, we have to de-interleave conversations. This has a rather high cognitive load. I think your point about duplication becomes relevant once we start seeing 200-300 comments per post, like on Slashdot. Wild digressions are hardly endemic to threaded conversations. I am really dubious that the culture and tone of a discussion site will be changed in any measurable way by the comment display scheme. The lazy designer's solution is to make threading a selectable option. Practically every discussion site has this now. USENET newsreaders have had it since the Pleistocene period. I don't think it is much of a controversial solution.
  • ponies: 1) Some way to indent a line of text if that's possible, since as it is, everything goes to the extremem left margin. [This is the one I want most, but expect others might care less.] 2) URL-search. 3) Spell-check might be nice. Maybe. If there's time to use it. 4) For our underline tags to finally work. 5) Some way to bigger a word or a line 6) Different fonts? Maybe? Might be fun to have a script and a Gothic, etc Might not. 7) Some way to elminate the oddity which seems to result when some people use diacritical marks, aceents, quotation marks, etc. Then strange and eerie gibberishes manifest, wot is the cause? I do not know.
  • A different page just for Curious George posts.
  • I think the "diacritical mark gibberish" has less to do with MoFi, and more to do with the encoding you're using. I could be wrong though. Perhaps information on the encoding best used to view MoFi and the best method for creating non-standard letters and symbols might go in the FAQ for those of us (like myself) who are computer-impaired. On preview: What shawnj said.
  • I would like to be able to subscribe to an RSS feed of individual posts. That way, if there's a topic I really want to keep track of, I can just pop it in my RSS Newsreader and let it tell me when I have new messages on the subject. Of course, you'll want to be sure to have it properly support the various ways of limiting bandwidth use (such as 304 errors and such), but that would be the single-handiest feature for me. Personally, I think this would be a better approach than fuyugare's #4, but only for people who regularly use RSS.
  • *is starting to wonder if this thread is making tracicle feel too pressured* I definitely think that more html tags would make for more fun. And spellcheck, oh my yes. quidnunc, that ain't a pony. That's a whole herd of broncos!
  • AUM
  • cabana boys
  • duplication becomes relevant once we start seeing 200-300 comments per post I don&#039;t get it, fuyu. I wouldn&#039;t be so diligent as to dig about for the median no. of (eg) Mefi coments per post, but I would say it was well under 2-300/ per 17 000 putative users. Is it necessary to decide 1-2 years out what may happen? Bear in mind that the door can be shut any time the membership decides. (With the consent of the big T, obviously!) Let&#039;s just monitor the situation, yeah? I mean this with all the good will in the world.
  • By the many arms of Vishnu, my mantra button isn't working!
  • Sorry, Wolof, either I wasn't clear in what I said, or I don't get your point. My point is that 'duplication' isn't a valid argument against threaded comments. I think threading is especially beneficial for low-volume discussions. It takes all the work out of collating threads:
    user2: YOU SUCK!!!11 posted by user1 [irrelevant stuff by other users] user1: UR MOM!1!1! posted by user2
    into a coherent conversation.
  • I hate threading, for a number of reasons. It makes it harder to read. It makes it harder to find new comments. It fragments the discussion, by implying that each reply can only reference one earlier post or point. Which leads to more posts, each making just a single point, or replying to a single point. Which then devolves into basically bullet pointing a conversation, which is evil incarnate. (And if you do reference two or more different posts, your comment will be probably be unreadable due to the comments you reference being appear further down the page, not yet seen by the reader.)
  • Bah!
  • Hmmm... I would like to track the threads I have contributed to. I would like to be able to see where the new replies are being posted (what do you mean that's not a new feature?). I would like to press a button and give Tracicle a big hug. I would like to press another button and electrocute all my enemies.
  • Said this before, elsewhere, but think the Curious Georges do brighten the front page, especially on days when election/war FPPs seem to sprout plentifully. The mingling of serious-content and lighter-hearted threads is a healthy thing, I think, in that it keeps us from getting too unbalanced in one direction or the other. Realize it may not be common on oither forums, but who says we have to be like other forums? This mingling, along with our astonishingly flexible Collective Memory, where one can continue commenting on threads which have fallen off the front page, seem to me to provide fertile ground for the emergence of individual personality from behind the usually brief comments from most. It is the underlying humanity of the monkeys, the persons behind the comments, which I find irresistible, so am reluctant to curtail circumstances which seem to encourage such expression and experiments and improvisations. We would be so much less if we hadn't been gifted with flashboy's incredulous fascination with Turkmenbashi, or The Great Apologist's missing socks, for example, or lacked ActuallySettle's skew-view of internets dullnesses and so on. Just my opinion, could be wrong. We keep inventing ourselves as we go along here. Hope we stay flexible, not get too hung up on rules and protocols and separations.
  • I like the curious george posts here, too.
  • UHM, all-powerful quidnunc, oops....AUM. /sorry. I agree with a new page for Curious George posts. I like Skrik's last two suggestions, as well.
  • I've always kind of liked that link-to feature on the Blue/Grey/Green, whereby people link to other users with whom they have relationships of whatever kind. I'd also love to see some posting and user stats, like occasionally pop up in Metatalk, that show who the most frequent posters/commenters are, etc. Infoporn, you know. I would also like to have a button which, when pressed, delivers me a crisp, limey vodka gimlet. And a little glass bowl of chex-mix.
  • Three words: Bean Bag Chairs
  • I want a pet monkey.
  • ++beeswacky
  • Bascially, if tracicle takes care of the current to-do list, I'm a happy camper.
  • How about if the "links posted by" on our profile pages went to the internal threads and not the external links?
  • Regarding the ideas about threaded compliments: I think a compromise might be reached. Add an optional "replying to" field to the comment, or something like that. Then, when printing the comments out to the page, append "in response to " to the comment information line at the bottom. For example, instead of
    ++beeswacky posted by Chaz at 03:38PM UTC on October 28
    we'd have
    ++beeswacky posted by Chaz at 03:38PM UTC on October 28 in response to beeswacky (reply)
    and then people could click "reply" and the replying-to field would be automatically filled in. That way, we retain the linear structure, but can more easily deinterleave the discussions. Perhaps support for a comma-delimited list of comment IDs could facilitate replying to multiple comments at the same time? Of course, comments not replying to anything could just leave that out, and the "in response to" part of the meta-line would just be left out when posted. In any case, it doesn't seem like it would be too much of a difference... My other request is for the list of posted links in a user's profile to link to the discussion and not to the page linked to. This is good because (1) we could then look up past discussions, and (2) posts which have no link field (which is fairly common) will still show up in a user's posting history (this doesn't happen now, inexplicably). On preview: hmm, that looks kind of long. Maybe use "re:" instead of "in response to"?
  • First, the ability to use style tags to customize our user profile pages, as was brought up in a CG post sometime back. Second, keep the CG posts where they are, as far as I'm concerned. Third, and I'm not sure if this has been fixed or not, but I noticed awhile back that the RSS feed doesn't work with Live Bookmarks. Fourth, I need at least seventeen +1's, to be delivered personally by pete_best. Finally, all-encompassing power over my enemies.
  • OK, that almost worked. That should have been
    posted by Chaz at 03:38PM UTC on October 28 in response to beeswacky (reply)
  • Also, s/compliments/comments/. I think I'm on crack. Or in Algorithms lecture. Same effect.
  • I think tracicle should fly to Florida, clean my house, give me a five dollar bill (American cash only; none of that crazy Kiwi stuff) and leave. On preview: middleclasstool, -1, presumptuous.
  • Tracicle, is the code on mephi-fork.sf.net currently what MoFi's running? There seem to be slight differences (eg. I can't select styles from the profile page), but I may not haven't enabled some configuration or other. Thanks.
  • First of all, love the site, tracicle! I'd like a "my CSS for Monkeyfilter" feature to allow me to easily create my own look for the front and comments page, and a "use someone else's CSS for Monkeyfilter" so we could share nice-looking versions. Also, as previously discussed, I think you should have a cotributions link to Paypal or maybe just an online shopping wishlist.
  • One problem with using chat for comments that might derail is that we're spread across lots of time zones. For example, if I wanted to discuss a slighty off topic issue with Nostrildamas about his apology, I'd have to stay up all night to make it a real chat. And, the interjections of on-to-one comments in the threads makes them more like normal, face to face discussion. Plus, I just didn't like what little "chatting" I've done. As for finding comments by user: I really like MetaFilter's method. If you go to a person's user page you can get lists of all the posts and all the comments by the user. Clicking on an item in the comments list takes you to that comment in its tread. The Google search we're currently using works, but is really unwieldy for users who are very active.
  • I like the curious george posts too. As a recent arrival from all the other blog sites, I think they're really nifty. I also don't like threaded comments, for all the reasons dng said. So that wasn't actually an opinion on adding things... um. Watched threads or tracking threads one has contributed to sound like great ideas to me.
  • A donation button
  • Threaded comments break my brain, and I need what little I have.
  • fuyugare: to the best of my knowledge, the code on sf.net is the original mephi 1.52 tarball + some changes Michael and Tracy did in may. So no stylesheet selector. If we are to manage development with more than two people, I think we need to use a mailing list, check-in the latest production version to CVS, and start a -devel branch.
  • Don't like threading. Do like ability to access user's posts and comments and have links go to posts, like wot JoeChip said. Also: AUM, I worship the all-powerful quidnunc, the desire-yielding lotus who is venerated by all existing beings, whose presence makes the deer forget its own self and the cow produce more milk, who blows his transcendental conch to stimulate the ganglia of his devotees, AUM.
  • How about a sticky open thread at the top that resets every 200 comments or so, like they just got at dailykos. It could be used to post little amusing things that aren't significant enough for a fpp, and used to sort of chat. Having a thread like that might prevent people from using other threads to "chat" with others, keeping the threads shorter and on topic. If people want records, then the thread could be archived somewhere instead of just erased every 200 comments. I didn't read all 70 comments above mine before posting this. I searched for a few terms in the thread first, but I could've missed it, so sorry if someone already posted this.
  • I don't think a reply to button would be a good idea because it encourages back and forth (and sometimes snarky) discussions, often between just 2 people, instead of a more open community discussion. Although, this is just my hypothesis, backed up with data from another forum, and it could be that the people from the other forum were just jerks.
  • I too would nix the threading and do like the front page Curious Georges and second Bees' eloquent remarks. also, in the interests of brevity: AUM, IWTAQTDLWIVBAEBWPMTDFIOSATCPMMWBHTCTSTGOHD, AUM
  • BTW, quidnunc, from now on, assume all of my posts are a solemn tribute to your most excellent cow-stimulating conch-blowing lotusness.
  • Why I started this thread: As you might know, the monkeyfilter codebase is undergoing some modification, and there is a possibility that we scrap it and rebuild on top of a CMS. I wanted to know what kind of features should be implemented, to have a better feel for the requirements.
  • Right. As far as I know, Michael updated the CVS on sf.net last night or the night before, so all MoFi's features should be there. Richer, we had a quick look through your code last night but our darling offspring #1 has been sick and we didn't get very far. We'll definitely add in the new metatag for user links and comments, hopefully tonight. The reason it links to external URLs instead of the actual discussion is because I'm a dumbass and took the code Jack had given me and implemented it wrong. It'll be fixed with Richer's new code, though. I don't intend to ever use threaded comments. pmdboi had a good idea, though, but I don't know if it's even necessary given that I've never seen much confusion with who is replying to whom anyway. Most of us are so accustomed to Mefi that we automatically name the person we're responding to. That may change in the future, but for now it's okay. As for the links to new comments on the front page, I'm sorry about that. It's been broken for months and it's always on my list of things to fix, but it just hasn't happened. I'll try to get it fixed soon. The sidebar links do work, though, although I know it's not the same. I think everyone is split almost 50/50 on where the Curious, George stuff should live. For that reason I haven't changed it, although some of the mechanisms are in place to move it to another page if necessary. I'm glad someone mentioned the IRC channel. Now we have almostover 2200 members, there's surely enough to enable regular chats in there. I recommend mIRC. I like the idea of having watched threads - it's something I've thought about occasionally. And reading this thread, I wish I could somehow highlight comments that I'd like to come back to. I don't know if we'll do inline images, for a variety of reasons, including time to load for slow connections and the risk of people hotlinking images from other sites, which could get us in trouble. I've been considering the possibility of allowing everyone to put a small picture (say 60x60) on their profile page. Umm, what else... Creating stylesheets: there are some great tutorials on the web - I can't recommend a good one but I'm sure someone else can. Spellcheck is on the list, but I want to do a pretty major overhaul of the comment box, including everyone's suggestions, so I don't know yet when that will happen. #2 and I talked recently about doing stats that would include things like "Most popular thread" and "Most prolific poster" and so on, but put it on hold because I had this crazy thought that you all might feel the need to compete to make yourselves the most prolific. But of course you guys wouldn't do that, nah.
  • It's easy to highlight comments to come back to - you can bookmark the comment and file them away. Watch threads can be done the same way, but they wouldn't be automated. You would have to bookmark your favorite, and go back to reload and check every so often.
  • The Metaphilter codebase is a complete mess, IMHO. Unless you have too much invested in it, or like re-inventing wheels, I would recommend scrapping it for a proper CMS framework like Zope or Drupal. Almost every serious pony on this page already exists in these frameworks.
  • My MonkeyFilter experience would be greatly improved if every member would chip in $3 and buy me a really fucking cool computer. Christmas is less than two months away. And no to threading. AUM.
  • i also agree, no threading... i like the idea of being able to track threads you've posted in or want to follow. i had an idea that is kind of an extension of that- i wonder if there is some sort of temporary bookmarking system that could be set up, so when you hit a link you are interested in, it adds to a list that displays on the FP for you, and allows you to remove links that no longer tickle your fancy? i would think its not too difficult to do with .php? i think it would be a lot easier and more popular than manual bookmarking within a browser, because it would be server-side, and portable.
  • whose presence makes the deer forget its own self and the cow produce more milk I knew that hat couldn't pass that superfluous apostrophe on. Against the grain. *piles on with "no threading" business*
  • Threading is terrible. Cabana boys are terrific.
  • fuyugare: That's also my opinion: Metaphilter 1.42 is a complete mess, and the wheel already exists elsewhere. I was going to write a mofi module in drupal, but I got sidetracked and started hacking on the current Mofi codebase. And it's strangely satisfying, especially for someone fresh out of college (but who won't ever become a professional programmer) like me. I started because Tracy said Michael and her had already invested quite a bit of time improving MoPhi and would feel kind of bad to scrap it. Now, I'm conflicted: I already spent quite a bit of time improving the code, and it's starting to show. Basically, the strategy up to now has been to mercilessly scrap all the configurability Jack had put in, in favor of clearer code & more efficient SQL. Monkeyfilter is a very simple app, so it presents a challenge that's just right for me. However, I can see how the very bad state of it (tags.php is quite nightmarish) can put off new developers. So the question is: do we continue hacking on our horrible codebase, because damnit, it's OUR horrible codebase, or do we rewrite the whole thing in Drupal/Zope/some other good CMS?
  • Also, Matt is supposed to add some features/make major changes to Metafilter. For that reason, my current approach is to make small improvements to the codebase, adding small but rewarding ponies, and wait to see what/how Matt changes Mefi. Then, look at what works/what doesn't and choose a course accordingly. For instance, there has been talks of adding categories to Metafilter. If it's done, and turns out to be a good feature, I think switching to a CMS framework with good category support will be in order.
  • I wish I had time to help. Unfortunately, I'll be losing my internet connection in a couple of weeks. For at least 3 months the only access I'll have is at the library.
  • I wish I knew enough to help out, but my coding skills still suck. I know nearly dick about web development. This seems like it would be a fun project to work on.
  • My pony: don't fix it. Let people who are responding to another comment use the bold tag to call attention. I haven't had any trouble in the de-interleaving/cognitive load area, though my grammar has gone straight to hell. (see paragraph 3) Please, please please don't add images. I'd much rather click on a link if it sounds like something I want to see. (also, and I want to be very honest with you here, if I EVER see those bullshit little color emoticons, especially the animated ones, I will find the monkey who used them, tear them into gobbets and fling the gobbets into the nearest toxic dump.) Some of the best stuff I've read on MoFi have been derails. It does get frustrating sometimes when I want to be the one who decides the topic and monkeys willfully go off on their own tangents with no regard for my decision, but I am learning to adjust. Keep the Curious, George posts on the front page. In fact, keep the definition of an appropriate FPP as loose as possible. Keep everything as loose as possible. Except for whatever I don't like. But I do have one request: my internet connection is much slower than most others. I'd be very appreciative if my fellow monkeys would give a word of warning when direct-linking to flash, movie, sound, or even gigantic pictures.
  • I knew that hat couldn't pass that superfluous apostrophe on. *tips hat to Wolof's splendid proofreading skills*
  • Add a html primer for the noobz
  • Add a html primer for the noobz Already in the FAQ.
  • Thank you Richer & beeza. I was able to get on.
  • I'd paypal in a substantial donation to see PatB tear someone into gobbets.
  • How about a better description next to this field in the post comment page— URL Description: So many people can't seem to figure it out that it's the sidebar description, and it's getting a little old seeing "link from *****" over and over. I used to think that people were just asking for attention, but I'm pretty sure it's just from misunderstanding what goes there.
  • Mr K, if you look at the "Post" page, it does say that. But I agree, it's sort of a pain. Maybe I'll embolden it or something.
  • And before I forget: can preview go at the bottom of the page (or just show the last ten posts), please?
  • Good idea, dng.
  • Some of the best stuff I've read on MoFi have been derails. Agree with PatB. Monkeyfilter: Keep everything as loose as possible
  • Except for whatever I don't like.