May 12, 2012

Monkey Feedback Survey
Some hypothetical questions on the offchance that we do a rewrite of MoFi: * What would you like to see done differently? * Which features work and which don't? * What is something you have seen on other websites that could work here?
posted by tracicle 12 years ago
  • Edit button for the poster? Many would like to go back and change their own mistakes. Is that possible? It might encourage more people to post.
  • When I use the Google search feature on the search page, I always get this message: We're sorry... ... but your computer or network may be sending automated queries. To protect our users, we can't process your request right now.
  • One thing that would be nice, if possible, would be to be able to keep track of all our posts and comments on our profile pages, like on MeFi.
  • And, as long as we are Wish Listing here, the little buttons to insert Bold, Italic and Link html to posts & comments would be good to have (for some reason, my spacebar most frequently malfunctions between the "a" and the "http")
  • Wow homunculus, I never use the search so I'm glad you pointed that out. That's...random. Listing previous posts/comments is high on my list too. (Maybe we could script in an auto-space button for you, foopy...)
  • There is a great temptation to make MoFi more like MeFi, but that wouuld lessen its Monkeyness, however the feature to format (italic, bold, small etc) and embed links would certainly allow colouring a post more. The Recent sidebar is one thing that has it over MeFi as it allows me to refer back to older posts that I have been following and lose track of when there are less replies. However if I'm away for a while and have to re-login, there can be too many links to check on, which then disappear on my next visit. It would be nice to be able to flag links (bookmark?) so certain favourite ones can be followed. I don't think it's necessary to have the fancy stuff like expending comment segments and tree-structure threads - simple is what works here. I don't use Archives much.
  • Oooh - I was thinking about an "I like this" button (somewhere between facebook and mefi). Maybe you could have bananas next to your post...because I like pointless non-features. I wonder how easy flagging/bookmarking would be - can't be difficult shirley. I really would like to have the archives and recent history be more accessible, definitely.
  • Flagging/bookmarking is just a many to many table with a couple of indexes. Maybe a limit to the number you can have, and an option to delete. Bananas are good. Flingable...
  • And always remember, monkeys don't ride 'ponies', they ride piggies.
  • We should be able to upload pictures to our profiles, like they can do at MoFi.
  • MeFi, I mean. Where's that edit button?
  • Dan: apparently there's something called Gravatar where you can use the same profile pic across many websites - #2 is keen to try that.
  • Yeah, so I was reading this thread and I went to hit favorite a bunch of times. I like the idea of doling out bananas.
  • Oh and it would be nice to be able to view your profile in non-edit mode when you're logged in. I would put having a history of comments and posts up higher than that for sure though.
  • doling out bananas *claps hands* This, please!! Tractor beam. We must have a tractor beam to drag all the old monkeys back. Poster prod. We must have a prod to get those lurkers out and posting.
  • Yes please, bananas! That's a great idea! A thought, which may not be a good one, but maybe it's worth having more of a "mission statement" (ugh blergh horrible phrase, but I can't think of a better one) as to what MoFi actually is - as opposed to being just a 'Metafilter clone' (which it isn't really) - displayed somewhere prominent? Might encourage new people to join, and lurkers to post, and hopefully even old monkeys to come back, if everyone knows a bit more clearly what we're all here for? And on a related note, although this might be an even worse idea, perhaps dividing the site into 'channels' for discussing different things? So, if you have a link about poetry, put the post in the Literature channel, or if you have a post about history, put it in the History channel, and so on. This would obviously require having a "Silliness" channel and a "I Dunno What The Heck This Is, Call It Misc." channel... Although that might make the site too structured, and not what you want at all. also, hi everyone! sorry I'm not around much at the moment. missed you guys.
  • No ideas, just saying hello. Um, 'hello'!
  • While I myself thoroughly enjoy homunculus' practice of adding to old threads (especially the legendary Single-Link Video thread), his efforts are invisible to all but logged-in members. I wonder if there should be a Generic version of "Recent Posts" and "Recent Comments" showing the last X days (2? 7?) of activity. Then again, the rising "members" number suggest that darn near everyone who stumbles onto this site is signing up - or is this a Hormel Potted Meat Product problem?
  • Since a member can enter a URL pointing to their "website", I suspect MoFi is being used to game Google results. So a suggestion could be to not allow that until membership is ratified. That will keep 'bashi going clickyclick for a while...
  • That's a really good point EdArzakh...now I'm trying to recall if we profile links hidden on unauthenticated accounts, but we didn't. I like that one a lot. A bot can create a MoFi account - I have to manually set each account from pending to the default so I can scan for spam. 99.9% of new accounts are bots. I did think about closing threads after a set time so homunculus would have to post to the front page (also for others, but it would affect him the most) because then there's more exposure and more visible new activity. MoFi is like a deep river...quiet on the surface but with flurries of activity underneath. I don't know about that though because it is part of the feel of MoFi to have eternal threads - like Daisy May or the youtube links.
  • I did think about closing threads after a set time NOOOOOO!!!
  • :-D
  • *clicks the admin-only "bananas for this comment" button*
  • I've been getting errors like this a lot lately: Warning: mysql_pconnect(): Too many connections in /home/mofi/lib/mofi/release/mp/metaphilter.php on line 40 Too many connections
  • 99.9% of new accounts are bots. Then can you scrub the records so that the Members count on the front page is not so absurdly high? Or do you want to keep it like that for bragging rights?
  • Nah, I'm just lazy. And always thinking I'll fix it in the Upgrade That Never Eventuates.
  • And always thinking I'll fix it in the Upgrade That Never Eventuates. To be forever referred to as the UTNE.
  • Homs, I got that mysql error message so many times I was nearly in mourning for MF! So it was merely admin laziness and not some major computer failure? Bad admin, no banana!
  • I've noticed this too - and we've been messing with the server so hopefully it's stopped...see, not always lazy. Give me nanners!
  • Argh. It's back. Wah.
  • Nanners!
  • Sorry...not sure what's going on yet and this is a job for #2, who has been flat out doing other things. Hopefully today is better.
  • The site is back but it's really slow this morning.
  • I mentioned it to #2 and he said (paraphrased) "Meh, we should just replace the code." He's keen to put the code up that he's written and get someone to do a quick and tidy CSS for it - then we can start with a beautiful and quick new backend. Anyone who is whizzy at stylesheets keen to have a go?
  • Wow, I just got back on after being shut out since the 24th. This is Not Good.
  • No, I'm very sorry about that. Is it Good now?
  • Appears to be so. If I disappear down the rabbit hole again, send in the flying monkeys! You do have flying monkeys, don't you?
  • If it goes down again, we'll have the back up MoFi aka MoFi II...