Follow-up post

February 14, 2007 9:41 PM

Feature request: Allow a follow-up post on closed threads by the original FPP poster. I often come across relevant and important information about subjects I made a FPP about months ago, but the thread is closed and it's not worth making a new FPP about it. It would be nice if the person who made the original FPP had the ability to make a single follow-up post after the FPP has closed. The example I had in mind was this thread about Citizenre solar-power, and this new story Citizenre: A House of Cards, an important development that should be in the archived thread.
posted by stbalbach to Feature Requests at 9:41 PM (17 comments total)

They start talking a little about it in this thread and mathowie weighs in closed threads - but nothing concrete seems to come of it.

My 2c on this is = great idea.
posted by jourman2 at 9:57 PM on February 14, 2007

Interesting, they talked about it in this thread too, and mat set the limit back to a year for commenting. But that changed back at some point. Anyone know the rest of the background?
posted by jourman2 at 10:02 PM on February 14, 2007

I'll think about it. On MeFi, it's still 30 days after it was posted, I think it's six months on ask mefi, or a year, I forget.
posted by mathowie (staff) at 10:15 PM on February 14, 2007

If we did this, it'd make sense as well to have a "followup" feed of some sort—listing all followup posts in the order they were followed-up (as opposed to by age of original posts).
posted by cortex at 10:27 PM on February 14, 2007

mom, cortex is giving me more work! make him stop!!!
posted by mathowie (staff) at 10:28 PM on February 14, 2007

And eat your broccoli, or no more NYT reviews.
posted by cortex at 10:30 PM on February 14, 2007

I've had the exact same thoughts: functionality to allow for a follow-up post and some indication to the rest of the horde that such a follow-up has occurred.

I almost always hold off on feature requests as I figure #1 is too busy. But now that someone else has brought it up, I'm totally on the bandwagon!
posted by aladfar at 10:36 PM on February 14, 2007

This is interesting. In early January I e-mailed Jess asking if it was at all possible to re-open a FPP because I had some new information concerning this FPP I had made in November 2006 regarding FOX's Daily Show rip off. I thought the new little tibit of info I had was worth of posting as a comment in that thread but not worthy of a whole new FPP of its own.

Jess responded that it wasn't possible for her at all and she wasn't even sure that Matt could do it without, quote "some serious hijinks" so she suggested that I keep the info for a time that seemed appropriate.

Earlier today I did, leaving this comment in todays thread about FOX's Daily Show rip off.

I guess my point is, allowing someone to make a one-off follow up post if they have some interesting new info to share is a neat idea, but Metafilter being Metafilter, anything worth discussing will eventually be brought up again,if not by you then by somebody else.

And if you don't totally buy that logic, leaving a comment in a new thread about the subject seems much more rewarding than leaving a once-off comment in an old thread that a) few people (if anyone) is likely to read and b) that no-one can respond to (since the thread will still be closed afterwards).

In short, saving info for a new thread will mean less work for Matt and will probably allow you to contribute to the site in a more meaningul way.

Now, Matt, seeing as though I've just saved you a pile of work, how about implementing that feature I e-mailed you about the other week. You know the one I mean. And because I know you haven't yet implemented it, if this comment posts more than once, please delete all but one occurence of it. Apologies in advance.
posted by Effigy2000 at 10:47 PM on February 14, 2007

See also this thread.
posted by mcwetboy at 4:50 AM on February 15, 2007

GOLD STAR FOR ROBOT BOY EFFIGY2000
posted by hangashore at 6:41 AM on February 15, 2007

I think it's a great idea. Even if not many people see it at the time, MeFi threads serve as useful repositories of information, and this would make them that much more useful.
posted by languagehat at 7:05 AM on February 15, 2007 [1 favorite]

mathowie writes "On MeFi, it's still 30 days after it was posted, I think it's six months on ask mefi, or a year, I forget."

It's a year for askme, I just commented a couple days a go in a thread orginally posted late Febuary 2006.
posted by Mitheral at 7:30 AM on February 15, 2007

It's UpdateFilter, and we need it.
posted by amberglow at 7:48 AM on February 15, 2007

Every once in a while people make posts which serve a curatorial purpose, bringing together the scant amount of information that exists on an esoteric subject to draw attention to it. I made one of those posts recently on Claude Degler, and I'd love to be able to add various links to Deglerana I might come across down the line to the post. That said, I recognize that del.icio.usor everything2.com might be better forums for that, but I don't use either, so I'm not in a position to know. I guess it's a question of whether MetaFilter should specialize or generalize.
posted by Kattullus at 8:20 AM on February 15, 2007

I would occasionally like the ability to replace a dead link - this piano stripper link is dead but I have an alternate source.
posted by madamjujujive at 10:38 AM on February 15, 2007

and on juju's point--a lot of YouTube links are being pulled--the Jon Stewart on Crossfire one i posted ages ago is gone i think--along with all their content, for just one example. Those things need to be linked to archive.org or wherever else they might live now online. Sort of an update/housecleaning thing.
posted by amberglow at 4:37 PM on February 15, 2007

or maybe it's more of a Project: ArchiveMe?
posted by amberglow at 4:38 PM on February 15, 2007