Need help with the Google+ M.F. Taters account

October 22, 2011 3:49 AM

I need help managing the Google+ M.F. Taters account and master list of MeFites on Google+.

Hello, this is Jacqueline. I obviously haven't been keeping up with my idea to compile a list of MeFites on Google+ via the "M.F. Taters" accounts on Google+ and MetaFilter.

Right now the M.F. Taters account on Google+ is circling anyone on Google+ who claimed to be a MeFite back July, but I haven't kept up with it.

Also, I wanted to improve upon the current setup by using the two "M.F. Taters" accounts to send messages to double-verify the links between MetaFilter accounts and Google+ accounts, then publish a MeFites-only-list of who's who on Google+.

I'm looking for one or more trustworthy volunteers who can help with this task. I'll share the sign-in information for both accounts with you and we can keep track of the double-verified accounts in a shared Google spreadsheet.

Please let me know if you can help, thanks!

posted by M.F. Taters to MetaFilter-Related at 3:49 AM (44 comments total)

Busy with International Taters Day, sorry.
posted by Brandon Blatcher at 4:17 AM on October 22, 2011

I swear to God there's a way on here to show all the users of any given social network on here, but I cannot find it.
posted by modernserf at 5:26 AM on October 22, 2011

This sounds really useful. Who knows how many spambots and astroturfers I have linked in my MeFi circle, thanks to Google's real names policy.

I was initially really hoping for something from G+, but I am guessing it is never going to replace FaceBook.
posted by Meatbomb at 5:27 AM on October 22, 2011

modernserf: I swear to God there's a way on here to show all the users of any given social network on here, but I cannot find it.

Voilà.
posted by gman at 5:40 AM on October 22, 2011 [6 favorites]

I with that I could privately annotate my connections in G+ to remind me which real names correspond to which Mefi usernames.
posted by octothorpe at 6:05 AM on October 22, 2011 [5 favorites]

That's a really cute lisp you have there, octothorpe.
posted by gman at 6:17 AM on October 22, 2011 [2 favorites]

Yup. And today's your turn in the barrel, Horselover!
posted by The corpse in the library at 8:22 AM on October 22, 2011 [1 favorite]

So this is a porn list?
posted by Edogy at 8:41 AM on October 22, 2011

That's a really cute lisp you have there, octothorpe.

My immediate first reaction was

C-s (

to try to find who was writing lisp here.
posted by DU at 8:42 AM on October 22, 2011 [1 favorite]

I thought it was a subtle pun on using lisp to write that annotation program
posted by infini at 8:54 AM on October 22, 2011

SHAKE YOUR FAVORITE MAKER.
posted by Brandon Blatcher at 8:56 AM on October 22, 2011

I with that I could privately annotate my connections in G+ to remind me which real names correspond to which Mefi usernames.

I have a Metafilter circle, and I have my Mefi username as an alternate name that only people in that circle can see.
posted by roll truck roll at 9:24 AM on October 22, 2011 [2 favorites]

Ironically, G+ has just dropped the "real name" requirement, so you could call that account anything you wanted - if you created it now.

And how am I NOT on that list? I joined in July, labeled myself "The MeFite Formerly Known As Wendell", and made a "MetaFiltered" circle containing 50 of the people on your list and 40 who are NOT. (I just made the circle public, but it may have already been - I don't know what I'm doing.)
posted by oneswellfoop at 9:30 AM on October 22, 2011

I have a Metafilter circle, and I have my Mefi username as an alternate name that only people in that circle can see.

Can you spell out really clearly how to do that?
posted by Meatbomb at 9:37 AM on October 22, 2011

Go to your profile.
Click "Edit profile."
Click "Other names."
Type in your user name.
For "Who can see this?" click "Custom" and select your Mefi circle.

It's not ideal, as it only shows up at the bottom of the profile, but it's better than nothing. I also added my profile link to the "other profiles" at the top.

I just circled you (Elliot Harmon) so you can see what it looks like.
posted by roll truck roll at 9:44 AM on October 22, 2011 [3 favorites]

I'm on g+ as theora55. I signed up as Theora Fifty-five with no trouble, but I also have had it as a gmail account for quite a while.
posted by theora55 at 9:58 AM on October 22, 2011 [1 favorite]

I don't know what I'm doing

er, this will not wendell? ;p


YES I KNOW, AN EMOTICON BUT ITS CAPS LOCK DAY
posted by infini at 10:00 AM on October 22, 2011

I signed up as Theora Fifty-five with no trouble, but I also have had it as a gmail account for quite a while.

I thought the same with my account but they caught up with. Most likely, given the number of people who have nyms on gmail than not, bet they've just thrown up their hands and given up

Wonder if I should bother trying to get my profile/account enabled again?
posted by infini at 10:02 AM on October 22, 2011

I am even more boring on g+ than I am here.

I have a metafilter circle with a bunch of people in it; I add more when the "suggested connections" or whatever it is called shows anyone with more than 1 person in common with me, as my other circles are essentially empty.
posted by maxwelton at 10:08 AM on October 22, 2011

maxwelton, that would work if there weren't people / spambots.
posted by Pronoiac at 11:07 AM on October 22, 2011

Wow, is it ever hard to add people using a 200+ comment list.
posted by jeather at 12:00 PM on October 22, 2011 [1 favorite]

Yeah, I don't use G+ much, but I'm on there. Reader is my primary social network these days, and now it's vanishing. The universe, she brims with sadness.
posted by Kattullus at 2:37 PM on October 22, 2011 [1 favorite]

Reader is vanishing? Or just Buzz? All I heard was that they were eliminating Buzz because it duplicated what Google Reader and Google+ do.
posted by Jacqueline at 3:03 PM on October 22, 2011

It's not disappearing, its being integrated into G+.
posted by wildcrdj at 4:25 PM on October 22, 2011

The social aspect of it is changing completely. Reader is a successful social network in ways that G+ isn't. G+ tries to be a slightly different Facebook, while Reader is something completely different. I stopped using Facebook for many reasons, most of whom still apply to G+. My social interaction through Reader will not slot easily into G+. The small, vibrant community on Reader will probably vanish into the void. Courtney Stanton did a good job of explaining the social aspects of Reader and how they function.
posted by Kattullus at 4:45 PM on October 22, 2011

Why double verify? If it's in your metafilter profile it should be good enough, no? I'm on there. Or more accurately, I have an account there.
posted by cjorgensen at 5:14 PM on October 22, 2011

I'm just going to sit here in the corner with my Google Apps account and watch the rest of you having fun.
posted by Rock Steady at 6:55 PM on October 22, 2011

Ironically, G+ has just dropped the "real name" requirement, so you could call that account anything you wanted - if you created it now

Source? A few weeks ago I had to change my name and I'd really like to be able to change it back.
posted by wayland at 9:31 PM on October 22, 2011

Ironically, G+ has just dropped the "real name" requirement

Sorry to say that's not so. I have a friend who just got his warning to change his name or lose his account yesterday.
posted by immlass at 10:33 PM on October 22, 2011

They announced they would support pseudonyms "soon". They are probably going to roll out a feature to add a nickname or something to your account for display purposes.
posted by Ad hominem at 10:49 PM on October 22, 2011 [1 favorite]

That thing about Google Reader made me so sad. I didn't realize it was that cool, now I feel like I missed out on something that would have been right up my alley. Google had the opportunity to grow something that was really unique, but the one time I heard anything about Reader was entirely negative, that one time they decided to remove all of the privacy features with no warning and everyone freaked out. I had no idea it was actually a different kind of social network (something more akin to Livejournal, without the negative LJ stereotypes, it sounds like?) If there was more positive press about it maybe it could have gotten a lot bigger.
posted by bleep at 2:17 AM on October 23, 2011

I'm slowly-and-hopefully-not-creepily going to enlarge my MetaFilter circle so I can have an excuse to check it more often. I'm really, really hoping to break my Facebook habit soon.

So that stranger that adds you in the next few days? That's me!
posted by alynnk at 5:26 PM on October 23, 2011 [1 favorite]

My strategy for identifying Mefites on G+ is pretty simple. Whoever has a profile picture that looks like Ira Glass automatically goes in my MetaFilter circle. Problem solved!
posted by slogger at 7:33 AM on October 24, 2011 [1 favorite]

I still use the BOP test to identify Mefites on G+
posted by octothorpe at 7:42 AM on October 24, 2011 [4 favorites]

Thanks to an early invite from Jacqueline, I've been in Google+ since the first few days, and it has really become my primary source for non-mefi social communication (ironically though, mostly with mefites).

I've been trying to move away from the other photography repositories and get my pictures into a more central location, and Plus has sort of become my go-to place for that sort of thing. The tools aren't perfect yet, but I like the direction they are going with them, and it's been fun to watch them get better as I'm using them.

That being said: I will warn anyone thinking of adding me to their circles; if you think I say stupid or boring stuff here, it's ten times worse in Plus, only there I also have the ability to put up pictures of my cats wearing costumes, so you can expect that kind of inanity as well.
posted by quin at 7:46 AM on October 24, 2011

If you're on that list of 127 I've added you. Ironically enough, I'm attempting to switch because Facebook is just being weird. And yet I feel like I wouldn't have a problem adding random people on Plus because of the filtering options.
posted by theichibun at 7:49 AM on October 24, 2011

I'll help! I have 294 suspected mefites in a circle, and oodles of spare time :)
posted by soft and hardcore taters at 4:38 PM on October 24, 2011

I haven't kept up with Google+. The fact that the only people I knew who used it during its rollout were Mefites, added with the fact that anyone I know IRL is already on Facebook, has turned it into a cool kind of giant blog thing when I have time to mess around on it, but I don't check it every day, every hour, every fifteen minutes... like I tend to with Facebook. Nowadays, my circles are 90% Metafilter, 8% Knitting people, and 2% people I actually know in real life.
posted by Gordafarin at 4:31 AM on October 25, 2011

"M.F. Taters"

Ugh, really?
posted by Eideteker at 7:40 AM on October 26, 2011

"Why double verify? If it's in your metafilter profile it should be good enough, no?"

Just like someone on Google+ could falsely claim to be a particular person on MetaFilter, someone on MetaFilter could falsely claim to be a particular person on Google+.

I don't think that it's particularly likely that a MeFite would do that, but while I tend to trust MeFites more than I trust people on other sites that allow pseudonyms, in reality anyone with $5 can make an account here and claim anything they want about themselves.

Meanwhile, some MeFites are fine with other MeFites knowing their Google+ (i.e. "real name") identities, but don't want it to be public knowledge. So if I'm going to publish a MeFites-eyes-only list of MetaFilter/Google+ identity linkages, I want to verify those linkages in both directions first.
posted by Jacqueline at 7:19 AM on October 27, 2011

Just to let everyone know who I followed on Plus. I deleted my Plus account and Google Plus reacted by sending out an e-mail notification to everyone I followed that said: "Kári Tulinius added you on Google+"

Sorry if there was any confusion.
posted by Kattullus at 12:50 PM on November 1, 2011

Dunno if anyone is still reading this, but did you know you can share a circle publicly? It would be kind of fancy if someone would publicly share their mefite circle and link it on their about page. That way you can add the whole group at once.
posted by empath at 11:08 AM on November 7, 2011 [3 favorites]

Google+ is now available for Apps users, by the way. This is me. I'd love to add all of you people, so empath's idea is a very good one.
posted by Rock Steady at 11:22 AM on November 7, 2011

Hi! I'm curating the M.F. Taters google+ account, and beginning to add people to the Verified Mefite List. If you want to get on the list, add M.F. Taters, and I'll send you a g+ message asking you to verify your username as soon as I can. Thanks folks :)
posted by soft and hardcore taters at 4:41 PM on November 13, 2011 [1 favorite]