wrecking the weekend record January 20, 2008 7:24 PM   Subscribe

hey whats the lowest number of metatalk threads ever posted over a two day period or maybe a weekend? TIA
posted by yhbc to MetaFilter-Related at 7:24 PM (61 comments total)

One less than now.
posted by tkolar at 7:28 PM on January 20, 2008 [1 favorite]


Yeah, woulda been this weekend... but YOU had to go and muck it up. Nice job. Loser.
posted by miss lynnster at 7:30 PM on January 20, 2008 [1 favorite]


I meant that in the most complimentary way possible, by the way.
posted by miss lynnster at 7:30 PM on January 20, 2008 [1 favorite]


I'm not going to do the math, but I'll save Plutor et al a scrape:

Here's some basic stats for metatalk posts since the beginning of time, including datestamps.
posted by cortex (staff) at 7:31 PM on January 20, 2008


I don't know about anyone else, but I was all ready to be damn outraged about something this weekend. But then all the snow we were supposed to get last night never materialized. So I...did other stuff.
posted by kittens for breakfast at 7:32 PM on January 20, 2008


Oh, I forgot - I'm writing a book. Yeah. That's why I needed this information.
posted by yhbc at 7:32 PM on January 20, 2008


Are we burning someone in effigy? If not, can we do it anyway, it's cold out.
posted by Brandon Blatcher at 7:35 PM on January 20, 2008 [2 favorites]


That link keeps hanging during the download, cortex.

[wants his data, NOW]
posted by tkolar at 7:36 PM on January 20, 2008


You are a very naughty boy, commish.
posted by stavrosthewonderchicken at 7:54 PM on January 20, 2008


Here's the last few pauses of any significance on Metatalk:

(days, end date)

3 2001-01-09
3 2001-02-14
3 2001-02-25
3 2001-03-19
3 2001-03-26
3 2002-06-04
3 2002-11-11
3 2002-11-30
3 2003-02-02
3 2003-06-18
3 2003-06-23
3 2003-08-03
3 2003-08-17
3 2003-09-15
3 2003-11-30
4 2001-02-22
6 2004-02-16
16 2001-08-21
posted by tkolar at 7:58 PM on January 20, 2008


tkolar for the win!
posted by localhuman at 8:00 PM on January 20, 2008


Oh, and here is the list of two-plus day breaks that ended on Mondays:

(days, end date)
2 2000-03-20
2 2000-06-26
2 2000-07-17
2 2000-07-24
2 2000-11-20
2 2001-01-29
2 2001-04-09
2 2001-04-23
2 2001-07-09
2 2001-07-16
2 2001-10-22
2 2002-01-21
2 2002-07-01
2 2002-08-19
2 2002-09-30
2 2002-10-07
2 2002-10-14
2 2002-11-18
2 2002-12-09
2 2002-12-23
2 2003-03-03
2 2003-05-12
2 2003-07-07
2 2003-10-27
2 2003-11-10
2 2003-11-17
2 2004-09-13
2 2004-11-15
2 2005-08-15
3 2000-04-17
3 2000-05-15
3 2000-05-29
3 2000-11-27
3 2000-12-11
3 2001-03-19
3 2001-03-26
3 2002-11-11
3 2003-06-23
3 2003-09-15
6 2000-09-25
6 2004-02-16
posted by tkolar at 8:09 PM on January 20, 2008


I don't really see why some people get pissy when Metatalk threads are posted.
posted by "Tex" Connor and the Wily Roundup Boys at 8:29 PM on January 20, 2008


As I was saying in #bunnies a few hours ago, I was hoping there would be some MeTa drama today. This will have to do.
posted by ThePinkSuperhero at 8:31 PM on January 20, 2008 [1 favorite]


Also, in case there was any doubt left that I'm procrastinating big time right now:

Percentage of total Metatalk posts by day of the week, and average number of comments in a Metatalk post per day of the week.


Monday: 16% of metatalk posts, 33 comments per post average
Tuesday: 16% of metatalk posts, 33 comments per post average
Wednesday: 17% of metatalk posts, 33 comments per post average
Thursday: 16% of metatalk posts, 33 comments per post average
Friday: 15% of metatalk posts, 33 comments per post average
Saturday: 9.9% of metatalk posts, 30 comments per post average
Sunday: 11% of metatalk posts, 31 comments per post average


(Writing simple python scripts is so relaxing...and I have literally entire days before I need to have this other stuff done...I mean, we're talking three digits worth of hours here, and don't even get me started about how many minutes I have...)
posted by tkolar at 8:37 PM on January 20, 2008


16 days of meta silence leading up to 2001-08-21? That's a real outlier.

Are you sure mattamyntex didn't retrospectively delete a whole bunch of posts, to try & suggest - in the wake of 9/11 - that we're not all pointless & shallow?
posted by UbuRoivas at 8:50 PM on January 20, 2008


Tell Ian's Aunt what?
posted by SassHat at 8:51 PM on January 20, 2008


16 days of meta silence leading up to 2001-08-21? That's a real outlier.

That might have continued to be the norm. But, we had a new user join on September 3, 2001.

Three days later he posted his first Metatalk post. The rest is history.
posted by vacapinta at 8:57 PM on January 20, 2008 [2 favorites]


You've found the very beginning of the slippery slope, vacapinta.
posted by Dave Faris at 9:01 PM on January 20, 2008 [1 favorite]


wait, irc? how to mefi irc? servers, channels, etc..
thx
posted by localhuman at 9:13 PM on January 20, 2008


Are you sure mattamyntex didn't retrospectively delete a whole bunch of posts,

Actually that two weeks marked the foundation of the cabal. Naturally they deleted all the organizational threads so that later they could claim it never happened.
posted by tkolar at 9:14 PM on January 20, 2008


The number of MeTa posts (as well as essentially every other kind of site activity) has been rising with time.
posted by Steven C. Den Beste at 9:17 PM on January 20, 2008


Jeez, who hopes for MetaTalk drama? What kind of sick soul must you own to pray that someone flames out? How fucked up must your daily life be to count the minutes before someone on the Internet takes offense and sees no satisfactory recourse but to type it out in a torrid rant, opening their grief up for discussion? I mean, srsly, that's messed up. That's so effing messed up. I'm not sure what's worse, either, that you're all slippery for MeTa drama or that you're willing to settle for this. Disgusting. FAIL sapien. Gah.
posted by carsonb at 9:19 PM on January 20, 2008


Who else has been here long enough to remember when Matt shut the site down for two weeks when he went on vacation?
posted by ColdChef at 9:21 PM on January 20, 2008 [1 favorite]


Not me!
posted by not_on_display at 9:29 PM on January 20, 2008


Actually that two weeks marked the foundation of the cabal. Naturally they deleted all the organizational threads so that later they could claim it never happened.

So the cabal was founded just prior to 9/11, while all the hijackers were in America?
posted by UbuRoivas at 9:29 PM on January 20, 2008


carsonb. I know it's fracked up. But I don't have a tv, and a little fun on Meta is always, well, fun to watch-
posted by localhuman at 9:30 PM on January 20, 2008


Disgusting. FAIL sapien. Gah.

Is this freakout WOOAH in reference to anything in particular in this thread, or are you just dropping your pants and setting your hair on fire for lulz comma epic?
posted by stavrosthewonderchicken at 9:56 PM on January 20, 2008



So the cabal was founded just prior to 9/11?


Call it a test of power.
posted by shakespeherian at 10:17 PM on January 20, 2008


Is this freakout WOOAH in reference to anything in particular in this thread

This, I think.

I'm still unsure if carsonb meant to fulfill ThePinkSuperhero's request... or did it unintentionally by posting a short rant about people who like to read dramatic rants on the internet.
posted by Tehanu at 10:25 PM on January 20, 2008


carsonb, LiveLurker and I have been trying over in the dregs of the last GiveWell thread, but people are all trolled out at the moment.

It's sad really. Makes me want to declaw my cat.
posted by tkolar at 10:47 PM on January 20, 2008


We could start going through people's profiles and making fun of their pictures. That would probably generate some drama.

We might have to memail the targets, which some might view as cheating, but whatever works, right?
posted by "Tex" Connor and the Wily Roundup Boys at 10:51 PM on January 20, 2008


I don't care if Monday's blue
Tuesday's grey and Wednesday too
Thursday I don't care about you
It's Friday, I'm in love

Monday you can fall apart
Tuesday, Wednesday break my heart
Oh, Thursday doesn't even start
It's Friday I'm in love

Saturday, wait
And Sunday always comes too late
But Friday, never hesitate...
posted by Meatbomb at 10:57 PM on January 20, 2008


Meatbomb, I've always loved you.
posted by Divine_Wino at 11:06 PM on January 20, 2008


I don't know where I went wrong.
posted by carsonb at 11:11 PM on January 20, 2008


tkolar: "Here's the last few pauses of any significance on Metatalk:"

What? Days? How in the hell do you measure that? Which time zone? What does 10am Monday to 1pm Wednesday count as? What would 10am Monday to 11pm Wednesday count as? If they're both 1, it forgets the latter's extra 10 hours. You need to do this shit by minutes, not days.
posted by Plutor at 2:45 AM on January 21, 2008


damn, if I knew people wanted to generate some MeTa action I would have gone with the original version of my comment in the "swearing on a date" Ask Me...
posted by russm at 3:14 AM on January 21, 2008


Don't you wish your Meta was hot like me....
posted by Brandon Blatcher at 3:59 AM on January 21, 2008


The number of MeTa posts (as well as essentially every other kind of site activity) has been rising with time.

I'm sorry, but based on your track record with misinformation in AskMe, Steven C. Den Beste, we'll need citations. Oh and witnessing by a notary, please. Thanks.
posted by terrapin at 6:35 AM on January 21, 2008




Wow, taking cortex's scrape and using the high-tech search algorithm of scrolling through looking for old posts with a high favorite count is a great way of watching Mefi history unfold.

There was the post where Matt was idly speculating about selling or closing Mefi, and the one where it turned out that dhoyt was... well, everyone.

Takes me right back to when I was still a semi-professional lurker.
posted by quin at 7:45 AM on January 21, 2008


Good job, carsonb! Gold star sticker for you.
posted by ThePinkSuperhero at 8:03 AM on January 21, 2008 [1 favorite]


Muah. Who loves ya?
posted by carsonb at 8:48 AM on January 21, 2008


What? Days?

The question was asked in days, the question gets answered in days.

Yer just jealous 'cuz you didn't see this until this morning.
posted by tkolar at 8:52 AM on January 21, 2008


I shamble in here in my PJ's simply to wonder, if the number of MeTa posts rises or declines during holiday periods? What about summer, or weekends? Are people bored and irritated more when they have the day off, or are they out actually... er, living?

Man, getting up at 11 a.m. on MLK day rocks my socks off. Now it's off to the movies and the gym!
posted by Unicorn on the cob at 9:32 AM on January 21, 2008


tkolar: "Yer just jealous 'cuz you didn't see this until this morning."

True.

posted by Plutor at 9:50 AM on January 21, 2008


Well, I already answered your question about weekends above.
posted by tkolar at 9:50 AM on January 21, 2008


There's a troubling dearth of graphs in here. Chop chop, people.
posted by cortex (staff) at 9:55 AM on January 21, 2008


I thought for sure I'd get whacked for posting this, but the data actually turned out to be kind of interesting.
posted by yhbc at 10:10 AM on January 21, 2008


You just got lucky is all. I'd been working on building out scripts do generate this and some other data sets; a few people have asked for things and it was get-caught-up time.

I've now got good scripts to generate vital stats for posts across the four mefi-like subsites (blue, green, grey, and music -- Projects, Jobs, and Podcast are all weird enough in various ways that I'm ignoring 'em for now), as well as comment stats (huge files!) and some other stuff. I've got a few more things I want to put together, too.

As a way of providing some of this data for playing with without worry about some of the headaches involved in providing an API or a straight db dump, I think it might be a good thing.
posted by cortex (staff) at 10:16 AM on January 21, 2008


Oooh, I've been meaning to do an analysis of how favorites are used. I was planning on scraping the favorites' history (subsite, post, post author, timestamp) for every user, but if you've already got a script that can provide those it will save both me and the db some hassle...
posted by tkolar at 11:01 AM on January 21, 2008


I'm going to hell for this.
posted by tkolar at 11:16 AM on January 21, 2008


Yeah, give me a couple days and save the scrape; a proper fave dump is high on my list. I ran a minimal version for signal (who asked about it a few days ago), and I can tweak that into a more thorough analysis pretty easily.
posted by cortex (staff) at 11:25 AM on January 21, 2008


I already did a favorite scrape. Here's what I got.
posted by Plutor at 11:53 AM on January 21, 2008


Here's what I got.

Heh. I actually coded in a tehloki exception last time I was futzing with faves. The man's a data-breaking disaster on the scale of the FreeQuonsar tag.
posted by cortex (staff) at 12:00 PM on January 21, 2008


Can someone point me to the actual dhoyt = jenleigh = highsignal = hallofrobots reveal? I've never seen it.
posted by iconomy at 1:03 PM on January 21, 2008


Here.
posted by dersins at 1:13 PM on January 21, 2008


remember when Matt shut the site down for two weeks when he went on vacation?
Here's the vacation page. And this is the 'What did you do on your MeFi vacation?' post.
posted by tellurian at 7:35 PM on January 21, 2008 [1 favorite]


Excellent work, tellurian. Added to the list.
posted by carsonb at 7:49 PM on January 21, 2008


Memories:

Welcome Back! I am ashamed to say that I checked the site about three or four times a day. You never know, right? Right?

Plus, I slummed around fark.com. Man, those people are "boobie" obsessed.

It's good to have Mefi back. Now, never go away again, dammit.

8:27 AM on August 21
posted by ColdChef at 9:00 PM on January 21, 2008


Thanks, tellurian. I was starting to think I'd imagined it.

Or else, everyone just pretended the site was down for two weeks, but I was the only member who couldn't see it and everyone was pointing at me and laughing. That's not what happened, is it?
posted by ColdChef at 9:01 PM on January 21, 2008


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