"Also On" Cleanup April 9, 2018 9:32 AM Subscribe
We've tidied up a bit in the "also on" sites in your profile. First, the cleanup discussed previously has been done. Thank you to everyone who categorised websites on the wiki and made it easier on me (if no less saddening) to remove deceased sites. Second, Mastodon and Diaspora have been, after requests and discussion, added.
Because of the federated nature of both sites and because there's no way to guarantee the location of a profile page, for these two social networks, the thing to do is to copy and paste in the URL to your profile, rather than your username.
For instance, rather than using @mastodon.social@kearsley as a username, you would use https://mastodon.social/@kearsley
For Diaspora, the same applies: Instead of kearsley@diasp.org, the sadly unwieldy https://diasp.org/people/acbdfec01e0f013696e5047d7b62795e is the thing to use.
Other than that, all the requested sites in the Wiki have been added, as well as Autostraddle and GitLab, which were in Past Suggestions but now able to be added.
Please let us know if there are any problems.
Because of the federated nature of both sites and because there's no way to guarantee the location of a profile page, for these two social networks, the thing to do is to copy and paste in the URL to your profile, rather than your username.
For instance, rather than using @mastodon.social@kearsley as a username, you would use https://mastodon.social/@kearsley
For Diaspora, the same applies: Instead of kearsley@diasp.org, the sadly unwieldy https://diasp.org/people/acbdfec01e0f013696e5047d7b62795e is the thing to use.
Other than that, all the requested sites in the Wiki have been added, as well as Autostraddle and GitLab, which were in Past Suggestions but now able to be added.
Please let us know if there are any problems.
Thanks frimble and ardegee and zamboni and cortex! Heart emoji to you all
posted by zerolives at 9:46 AM on April 9, 2018 [2 favorites]
posted by zerolives at 9:46 AM on April 9, 2018 [2 favorites]
Yay, I like having Mastodon in my profile now. Thanks for everyone's hard work with all the behind the scenes stuff, all those nuts and bolts that make this place run so well. Huzzah!
posted by Fizz at 9:49 AM on April 9, 2018
posted by Fizz at 9:49 AM on April 9, 2018
Thanks frimble, awesome work.
posted by Chrysostom at 10:40 AM on April 9, 2018
posted by Chrysostom at 10:40 AM on April 9, 2018
Thanks! This is great!
posted by TheophileEscargot at 11:58 AM on April 9, 2018
posted by TheophileEscargot at 11:58 AM on April 9, 2018
Hey cool and thank you! Might it be worth also checking in with the IM options? AIM is no longer a thing, alas, and maybe shouldn't be there anymore?
posted by jessamyn (retired) at 1:34 PM on April 9, 2018 [2 favorites]
posted by jessamyn (retired) at 1:34 PM on April 9, 2018 [2 favorites]
I was just writing to say that while the Mastodon links work in profiles it doesn't seem to work on Social Explorer page:
https://www.metafilter.com/contribute/socialexplorer.mefi?sid=175
Which looks to be MUCH harder to code with so many instances on Mastodon from which to choose.
posted by terrapin at 1:40 PM on April 9, 2018
https://www.metafilter.com/contribute/socialexplorer.mefi?sid=175
Which looks to be MUCH harder to code with so many instances on Mastodon from which to choose.
posted by terrapin at 1:40 PM on April 9, 2018
And frimble looked lonely so I signed up for a Disapora account ;)
posted by terrapin at 1:52 PM on April 9, 2018 [2 favorites]
posted by terrapin at 1:52 PM on April 9, 2018 [2 favorites]
Oh man, I should have requested that are.na be added.
posted by waninggibbon at 2:03 PM on April 9, 2018
posted by waninggibbon at 2:03 PM on April 9, 2018
Thanks for your hard work! It's really appreciated and I've updated my profile!
posted by ardgedee at 2:06 PM on April 9, 2018 [1 favorite]
posted by ardgedee at 2:06 PM on April 9, 2018 [1 favorite]
I memailed frimble about that bug. I'm guessing there's special handling on the profile pages that strips off the prefix, and the Social Explorer needs the same thing.
posted by zamboni at 2:06 PM on April 9, 2018
posted by zamboni at 2:06 PM on April 9, 2018
Thank you for adding my most recent suggestion to the list!
Hey cool and thank you! Might it be worth also checking in with the IM options? AIM is no longer a thing, alas, and maybe shouldn't be there anymore?
Sigh, I noticed that too and just felt nostalgic about it still being there. RIP, AIM.
Also, question: Last.fm is listed as having a widget, but there isn't one showing up for me. Is that still an option?
posted by limeonaire at 10:54 PM on April 9, 2018
Hey cool and thank you! Might it be worth also checking in with the IM options? AIM is no longer a thing, alas, and maybe shouldn't be there anymore?
Sigh, I noticed that too and just felt nostalgic about it still being there. RIP, AIM.
Also, question: Last.fm is listed as having a widget, but there isn't one showing up for me. Is that still an option?
posted by limeonaire at 10:54 PM on April 9, 2018
I was just writing to say that while the Mastodon links work in profiles it doesn't seem to work on Social Explorer page
Should work now. Also for Diaspora.
YouTube has both channel and user links now, and it's not entirely a user's control which one they have. It might be useful to have "YouTube (channel)" for which the base URL would be "http://www.youtube.com/c/[input]" and "YouTube (user)" for which the base URL would be "http://www.youtube.com/user/[input]".
Going to consider how we want to do this: If we're going to split into channel and user, it might make sense to include the channel as a widget as well.
The Amazon base profile URL has become: https://www.amazon.com/gp/profile/[input]
IFTTT no longer has a URL for every user, and its 'creator' base URL has become:
https://ifttt.com/makers/[input]
eBay user URLs are now at: http://[input].ebay.com
Have fixed all of these now.
Kinja is the Gizmodo Media Group user profiles: https://kinja.com/[input] -- it would replace what used to be the "Gawker Media" entry in the "Also on:" menu
Readability's gone.
Removed both of these in the cleanup. The Gawker Media one didn't seem to match up 1:1 with Kinja when I tested it, so it'll probably be better to add Kinja as a new option.
Might be cool to be able to have Pocket on Social Explorer so we can see what Mefites are reading. Their profile URL:
https://getpocket.com/@[INPUT]
Added this in the cleanup.
This might be a better replacement user URL for Wikipedia:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Contributions/[INPUT]
Possibly! I don't edit Wikipedia, so I'm not sure what people who do would prefer.
Thanks for giving me a reminder to look at the dangling problems there.
posted by frimble (staff) at 12:09 AM on April 10, 2018 [2 favorites]
Should work now. Also for Diaspora.
YouTube has both channel and user links now, and it's not entirely a user's control which one they have. It might be useful to have "YouTube (channel)" for which the base URL would be "http://www.youtube.com/c/[input]" and "YouTube (user)" for which the base URL would be "http://www.youtube.com/user/[input]".
Going to consider how we want to do this: If we're going to split into channel and user, it might make sense to include the channel as a widget as well.
The Amazon base profile URL has become: https://www.amazon.com/gp/profile/[input]
IFTTT no longer has a URL for every user, and its 'creator' base URL has become:
https://ifttt.com/makers/[input]
eBay user URLs are now at: http://[input].ebay.com
Have fixed all of these now.
Kinja is the Gizmodo Media Group user profiles: https://kinja.com/[input] -- it would replace what used to be the "Gawker Media" entry in the "Also on:" menu
Readability's gone.
Removed both of these in the cleanup. The Gawker Media one didn't seem to match up 1:1 with Kinja when I tested it, so it'll probably be better to add Kinja as a new option.
Might be cool to be able to have Pocket on Social Explorer so we can see what Mefites are reading. Their profile URL:
https://getpocket.com/@[INPUT]
Added this in the cleanup.
This might be a better replacement user URL for Wikipedia:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Contributions/[INPUT]
Possibly! I don't edit Wikipedia, so I'm not sure what people who do would prefer.
Thanks for giving me a reminder to look at the dangling problems there.
posted by frimble (staff) at 12:09 AM on April 10, 2018 [2 favorites]
Oh man, I should have requested that are.na be added.
Can you check if it's been added correctly, please?
Might it be worth also checking in with the IM options? AIM is no longer a thing, alas, and maybe shouldn't be there anymore?
I've removed AIM. :(
Are there IM options that should be there and aren't?
posted by frimble (staff) at 1:08 AM on April 10, 2018 [1 favorite]
Can you check if it's been added correctly, please?
Might it be worth also checking in with the IM options? AIM is no longer a thing, alas, and maybe shouldn't be there anymore?
I've removed AIM. :(
Are there IM options that should be there and aren't?
posted by frimble (staff) at 1:08 AM on April 10, 2018 [1 favorite]
Going to add my usual question/bug report: is there any reason I can't add a fourth bandcamp artist page? And if it is by design, shouldn't it tell me that rather than saying "profile successfully updated" when it actually doesn't save any changes?
posted by Dysk at 4:54 AM on April 10, 2018
posted by Dysk at 4:54 AM on April 10, 2018
Are.na successfully added. Thanks, frimble! Any other users out there?
posted by waninggibbon at 10:31 AM on April 10, 2018
posted by waninggibbon at 10:31 AM on April 10, 2018
frimble: Are there IM options that should be there and aren't?
Telegram would be nice maybe?
posted by Too-Ticky at 12:37 PM on April 10, 2018
Telegram would be nice maybe?
posted by Too-Ticky at 12:37 PM on April 10, 2018
Having just looked at the mathowie thread next to this one, I noticed that this part of the FAQ needs updating:
I need to get in touch with a site admin in a hurry. How do I do this?
Here is a link to the Contact Form. It will reach whoever is working; this is the quickest way to get most problems resolved. When you use the contact form, an email is sent to all of the admins, and whoever is working will respond. The response will go to your email address, not to MeFi Mail.
Do not use MeFi Mail to get in touch with an admin in a hurry. Admins often disable MeFi Mail when they're not available to handle site issues.
IM or chat is another other good way to get through to the site admins in a hurry:
AIM: jeremypreacher
gtalk: nnncortex, taz.at.mefi, jpreacher, gee.email, lobstermittens
(tags: mods admins metatalk im contact ) March 6, 2006 - back to questions
posted by Melismata at 12:46 PM on April 10, 2018 [1 favorite]
I need to get in touch with a site admin in a hurry. How do I do this?
Here is a link to the Contact Form. It will reach whoever is working; this is the quickest way to get most problems resolved. When you use the contact form, an email is sent to all of the admins, and whoever is working will respond. The response will go to your email address, not to MeFi Mail.
Do not use MeFi Mail to get in touch with an admin in a hurry. Admins often disable MeFi Mail when they're not available to handle site issues.
IM or chat is another other good way to get through to the site admins in a hurry:
AIM: jeremypreacher
gtalk: nnncortex, taz.at.mefi, jpreacher, gee.email, lobstermittens
(tags: mods admins metatalk im contact ) March 6, 2006 - back to questions
posted by Melismata at 12:46 PM on April 10, 2018 [1 favorite]
Oh, good catch - IM is a *terrible* way to get a hold of me in a hurry, at least. (Especially on AIM...)
posted by restless_nomad (staff) at 5:29 PM on April 10, 2018
posted by restless_nomad (staff) at 5:29 PM on April 10, 2018
Yeah, you don't want to drop to someone's edits. Their user page is the page they maintain and it's a better landing spot.
posted by jessamyn (retired) at 6:38 PM on April 10, 2018
posted by jessamyn (retired) at 6:38 PM on April 10, 2018
I'm not sure if this is the right thread for it, but is there a way of adding a WordPress blog other than as a website and I just missed it? It feels weird to me that I can add my blog at the top of my user page but not in the social section.
posted by saltbush and olive at 12:31 AM on April 11, 2018
posted by saltbush and olive at 12:31 AM on April 11, 2018
Going to add my usual question/bug report: is there any reason I can't add a fourth bandcamp artist page? And if it is by design, shouldn't it tell me that rather than saying "profile successfully updated" when it actually doesn't save any changes?
There's an explicit limit of three accounts per social app. I don't know how three was arrived at as the number, but for now, I've at least added an error message if you try to add a fourth.
posted by frimble (staff) at 1:00 AM on April 11, 2018 [1 favorite]
There's an explicit limit of three accounts per social app. I don't know how three was arrived at as the number, but for now, I've at least added an error message if you try to add a fourth.
posted by frimble (staff) at 1:00 AM on April 11, 2018 [1 favorite]
I'm not sure if this is the right thread for it, but is there a way of adding a WordPress blog other than as a website and I just missed it? It feels weird to me that I can add my blog at the top of my user page but not in the social section.
If you mean your wordpress blog that you host on your own website, then adding it as a website is totally what's expected. If, on the other hand, you mean an account on wordpress.com, help me find a way to treat it like Tumblr: Is there an address under the main domain that is "you", and if so, what's an example address?
posted by frimble (staff) at 1:25 AM on April 11, 2018
If you mean your wordpress blog that you host on your own website, then adding it as a website is totally what's expected. If, on the other hand, you mean an account on wordpress.com, help me find a way to treat it like Tumblr: Is there an address under the main domain that is "you", and if so, what's an example address?
posted by frimble (staff) at 1:25 AM on April 11, 2018
Is there a reason we can't use a pattern like
http://[input].wordpress.com/
in the same way you would for Tumblr or Blogger? Or https I guess. Both of these work
https://saltbusholive.wordpress.com/
https://olivefeed.wordpress.com/
though the first one will redirect because I stupidly thought that saltbusholive.garden was a funny url to own.
posted by saltbush and olive at 3:08 AM on April 11, 2018
http://[input].wordpress.com/
in the same way you would for Tumblr or Blogger? Or https I guess. Both of these work
https://saltbusholive.wordpress.com/
https://olivefeed.wordpress.com/
though the first one will redirect because I stupidly thought that saltbusholive.garden was a funny url to own.
posted by saltbush and olive at 3:08 AM on April 11, 2018
There's an explicit limit of three accounts per social app. I don't know how three was arrived at as the number, but for now, I've at least added an error message if you try to add a fourth.
Ah cool, thanks for clearing that up! I've looked for any mention of a limit many times, but have never found one. Now I know!
posted by Dysk at 3:16 AM on April 11, 2018
Ah cool, thanks for clearing that up! I've looked for any mention of a limit many times, but have never found one. Now I know!
posted by Dysk at 3:16 AM on April 11, 2018
I've added https://[name].wordpress.com as an option now, in the vein of Tumblr or Blogger.
I've looked for any mention of a limit many times, but have never found one.
I had to go digging a bit to find it, but can safely say that it's not accidental. I also poked around a bit with what a profile page looks like with more than three of one social app, and found that three, especially when mixed in with other apps, was already borderline unparseable for me, especially on a phone where I can't hover over the icon.
If you want more, my feeling would be that adding them to the 'about' section of your profile is probably a better way to go, particularly since that lets you say what differentiates the various accounts.
posted by frimble (staff) at 4:26 AM on April 11, 2018 [2 favorites]
I've looked for any mention of a limit many times, but have never found one.
I had to go digging a bit to find it, but can safely say that it's not accidental. I also poked around a bit with what a profile page looks like with more than three of one social app, and found that three, especially when mixed in with other apps, was already borderline unparseable for me, especially on a phone where I can't hover over the icon.
If you want more, my feeling would be that adding them to the 'about' section of your profile is probably a better way to go, particularly since that lets you say what differentiates the various accounts.
posted by frimble (staff) at 4:26 AM on April 11, 2018 [2 favorites]
The limit makes total sense! I'm good with it! I just didn't know, since I've never seen it actually referenced anywhere, and trying to add the fourth didn't throw any kind of error.
posted by Dysk at 4:34 AM on April 11, 2018 [1 favorite]
posted by Dysk at 4:34 AM on April 11, 2018 [1 favorite]
As much as I hate to say so, Nintendo's Miiverse is also a dead service and could be removed. Perhaps replace it with Nintendo Switch user IDs?
posted by Servo5678 at 5:34 AM on April 11, 2018
posted by Servo5678 at 5:34 AM on April 11, 2018
Is there a publicly visible profile for switch ids?
posted by frimble (staff) at 6:36 AM on April 11, 2018
posted by frimble (staff) at 6:36 AM on April 11, 2018
I'm going to drink deep from the Pool of Vague Memory and say that the way the limit thing happened was
1. many years ago, mathowie decided (after team discussion, or MetaTalk discussion, or after reading something on kottke) to implement the Also On stuff for profiles
2. pb coded it up
3. pb said to Matt, "should there be a limit on these, so no one does something stupid like adding 100 myspace accounts?"
4. Matt said "oh, huh, yeaaaaah."
5. pb said "what do you think the limit should be?"
6. Matt said "Huh. Um, threeee?"
7. pb limited it to three.
8. There is no step eight.
Documentation and process were not always front-and-center elements of feature implementation, basically. Thanks for catching the uncommunicated error on adding a fourth; thanks to frimble for fixing that; we can look at tossing a little line about the limit on the page.
posted by cortex (staff) at 8:40 AM on April 11, 2018 [6 favorites]
1. many years ago, mathowie decided (after team discussion, or MetaTalk discussion, or after reading something on kottke) to implement the Also On stuff for profiles
2. pb coded it up
3. pb said to Matt, "should there be a limit on these, so no one does something stupid like adding 100 myspace accounts?"
4. Matt said "oh, huh, yeaaaaah."
5. pb said "what do you think the limit should be?"
6. Matt said "Huh. Um, threeee?"
7. pb limited it to three.
8. There is no step eight.
Documentation and process were not always front-and-center elements of feature implementation, basically. Thanks for catching the uncommunicated error on adding a fourth; thanks to frimble for fixing that; we can look at tossing a little line about the limit on the page.
posted by cortex (staff) at 8:40 AM on April 11, 2018 [6 favorites]
I don't anticipate us making any further changes to the display options for favorites in the foreseeable future.
posted by cortex (staff) at 10:34 AM on April 11, 2018 [1 favorite]
posted by cortex (staff) at 10:34 AM on April 11, 2018 [1 favorite]
Is there a publicly visible profile for switch ids?
Not that I know about. There's no Switch social network.
posted by Servo5678 at 12:43 PM on April 11, 2018
Not that I know about. There's no Switch social network.
posted by Servo5678 at 12:43 PM on April 11, 2018
Because I got curious about whether and to what extent there was a record of that whole Also On limit discussed above, and in an effort to be fair to my erstwhile colleagues, I decided to go for a kayak down the River of Actual Recorded Conversations, and found an honest-to-goodness email conversation that Matt, pb, Jess and I were all in on, from August 6, 2007, the pertinent sliver of which is this:
In which the ramifications of the defensive maneuver of that preemptive anti-jackass 12-item limit immediately become clear when Jessamyn is an edgecase. Heh.
posted by cortex (staff) at 11:46 AM on April 15, 2018
pb: How do we feel about duplicates? With the current system, someone couldWhich turned from there to misc. bug-fixing discussion and whatnot, leading up to a roll-out the next day: Social Web Links on Profile Pages.
add 15 digg accounts. Is that ok, or should I put some rules in there?
jessamyn: There are some people who have a few del.icio.us accounts. Maybe just
have a note someplace that these are for your accounts only and not
for just keeping some sort of bookmark list. max of 2? 3?
pb: ok, I'll set a max of 3 unique per service and warn them on the action
page if they're trying to go over.
We'll probably still get some jackass that just puts in bogus data for 3
of each to get a funky lineup of icons. I guess we could set a max of 12
total to make it less fun for jackasses.
In which the ramifications of the defensive maneuver of that preemptive anti-jackass 12-item limit immediately become clear when Jessamyn is an edgecase. Heh.
posted by cortex (staff) at 11:46 AM on April 15, 2018
I continue to be an edge case, I hit the 999 contact limit when I went to the Toronto meetup. Apologies for those I haven't marked as "i have met this person in real life"
posted by jessamyn (retired) at 1:03 PM on April 15, 2018
posted by jessamyn (retired) at 1:03 PM on April 15, 2018
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posted by cortex (staff) at 9:36 AM on April 9, 2018