Who are you and why do I like you so much?

February 14, 2008 6:55 PM

In a large and steadily-growing community, and possibly because I'm getting old and stuff, I find myself having trouble sometimes remembering who said what, especially when it's a newer user. So, a possibly small and easy-to-implement feature request.

Here's what I was just thinking about. I keep seeing usernames who I recall having strong feelings about, based on things they have said, but can't for the life of my remember why.

So I thought it might be neat and easy and not very expensive in terms of database hits if, when I visited someone's profile, there was a field, visible only to me, as the logged-in user, that said something like:

You have favorited this user's contributions X times

where 'this user' is the person whose profile I am looking at, and X, is well, the count of the number of times I've favorited their stuff, and maybe a link to a view of my favorited items, restricted to the ones they've written.

I'm open to better ideas for a similar kind of thing, of course. Not the most urgent of requests, I know, but it'd be kind of nice, and maybe easy to knock out in terms of code.

posted by stavrosthewonderchicken to Feature Requests at 6:55 PM (21 comments total)

stavrosthewonderchicken: "I keep seeing usernames who I recall having strong feelings about, based on things they have said, but can't for the life of my remember why. So I thought it might be neat and easy and not very expensive in terms of database hits if, when I visited someone's profile, there was a field..."

I don't know if this would suit you, but I had a feature request for a similar reason (wanting a way to better track who said what that I found noteworthy), and jacalata made a fab Greasemonkey script for it.

In fact, I just made a note on you. It says, "getting old and stuff." ;)

It doesn't have the exact functionality that you seek but it could be made to, and serves approximately the same purpose: a memory jog to help distinguish any one user in a sea of multitudes.
posted by pineapple at 7:03 PM on February 14, 2008

It might be easier if we could classify a contact not only as a muse/friend/co-resident etc but as a 'sworn enemy' (or something along those lines) and comments from your contacts indicated to you (and only to you) a) that person is a contact and b) what you designated them as.

But I know Matt has said numerous times that he dosen't want to change contacts so 'easier' is a relative term here, I guess.

I also guess any system that reminds you that you like to start shit-fights with another user whose ideas differ from your own is probably a bad idea around here...
posted by Effigy2000 at 7:05 PM on February 14, 2008

Yeah, that's totally easy to do and something we could add to profile pages.
posted by mathowie (staff) at 7:13 PM on February 14, 2008

Just so you know, you absolutely love me.
posted by houseofdanie at 7:32 PM on February 14, 2008

This is a good idea.
posted by churl at 7:50 PM on February 14, 2008

This is a great idea.
posted by pwally at 7:52 PM on February 14, 2008

Thanks, Matt, that'd be great.
posted by stavrosthewonderchicken at 8:23 PM on February 14, 2008

Man, when I once suggested it would be nice to see how many times I'd favorited a person, I got swamped with a tsunami of no, because it would make the site too much of a circle jerk. Hmph.

it probably would, but that's beside the point!
posted by davejay at 11:38 PM on February 14, 2008

Thanks, Matt, that'd be great.

Don't believe his lies.
posted by juv3nal at 12:13 AM on February 15, 2008

If a particular user bothers me that much, I write their name on a list on the wall next to my desk in blood.
posted by louche mustachio at 12:15 AM on February 15, 2008

Man, when I once suggested it would be nice to see how many times I'd favorited a person, I got swamped with a tsunami of no, because it would make the site too much of a circle jerk. Hmph.

The idea here is that only I can see the number of their profile, and that I can click through to see their posts that I have favorited in past. I don't really see any way that would reinforce any circlejerkery that is already inherent in the favoriting system. There's no circle!
posted by stavrosthewonderchicken at 12:55 AM on February 15, 2008

I don't really see any way that would reinforce any circlejerkery that is already inherent in the favoriting system. There's no circle!

Just an unorganized mass of jerks.
posted by The Deej at 1:42 AM on February 15, 2008

Thanks for posting this, stavros. There have been multiple requests for this and lately, I too would really like to see it happen.

Bonus feature: author gets to set private (default?) or public, in which case it becomes a testimonial. Subject user can disallow public testimonials, including retroactively, and it should too probably be the default.

I'm probably running too far with this, but I thought I'd put it out there while I'm on this friday afternoon caffeine buzz oh my god something shiny what ow my stomach ow
posted by goodnewsfortheinsane at 8:03 AM on February 15, 2008

It might be easier if we could classify a contact not only as a muse/friend/co-resident etc but as a 'sworn enemy'

Isn't this what "crush" is for? People you'd like to crush?
posted by DevilsAdvocate at 8:20 AM on February 15, 2008 [1 favorite]

I think this is a great idea; it's a simple and elegant solution to a need I hadn't even thought of till you pointed it out.
posted by quin at 8:20 AM on February 15, 2008

You know, it would be nice to see a greasemonkey-style plugin where you can mouse-over usernames for a simple floating dialog box consisting of notes you've made on that user.

ie "Frequent awesome posts <3>
"Chronic double poster"

"Spammer?"

"I would have his manbabies"

"Fucking trolling asshole. #37 on list of people to kill."

etc. etc.
posted by Ryvar at 8:57 AM on February 15, 2008

Ryvar, you're kidding, right?
posted by pineapple at 9:10 AM on February 15, 2008

No, he really does have you at #37. There's a lot of competition.
posted by scrump at 9:25 AM on February 15, 2008

Just an unorganized mass of jerks.

You say that like it'd be something new.
posted by deborah at 10:41 AM on February 15, 2008

Who are you and why do I like you so much?
Well, there was that time in the moonlight...
posted by tizzie at 5:57 PM on February 15, 2008

Did it catch you in the spotlight?
posted by blacklite at 10:19 PM on February 16, 2008