No love for FanFare? January 4, 2025 10:22 PM Subscribe
FanFare does not get a ton of traffic, any thoughts on how to change that?
I'm starting to notice a frequency of AskMe posts seeking film recommendations. There is also a reliable share of artist and/or creative product identification activity in AskMe.
I asked Lemkin about recent posts to the blue and they simply cited more engagement as their reason for choosing blue over purple.
Please be clear: I don't think there's a right or wrong way about it, but overall I'd say FanFare is undervalued and underutilized. I am pretty sure this question has been raised in the past?
I dedicate this to DirtyOldTown, who never stopped believing
I'm starting to notice a frequency of AskMe posts seeking film recommendations. There is also a reliable share of artist and/or creative product identification activity in AskMe.
I asked Lemkin about recent posts to the blue and they simply cited more engagement as their reason for choosing blue over purple.
Please be clear: I don't think there's a right or wrong way about it, but overall I'd say FanFare is undervalued and underutilized. I am pretty sure this question has been raised in the past?
I dedicate this to DirtyOldTown, who never stopped believing
ginger.beef, you’re totally right about FanFare being under utilized. I look at FF posts every day but I rarely make any comments because I haven’t seen the movie or tv show and likely never will but it’s still interesting to me. Lemkin is also correct about there being lesser engagement on FanFare and I would love to see that change. What about double posting? A post on the blue with a “more inside” but it’s actually a link to a post on FF?
I look forward to seeing DirtyOldTown”s almost daily posts. I would love to know how he manages to find the time to watch all those movies! He’s the best and I would be very sad if he was no longer active here.
posted by ashbury at 10:50 PM on January 4 [15 favorites]
I look forward to seeing DirtyOldTown”s almost daily posts. I would love to know how he manages to find the time to watch all those movies! He’s the best and I would be very sad if he was no longer active here.
posted by ashbury at 10:50 PM on January 4 [15 favorites]
It’s unfortunate, Fanfare is probably still the area of MeFi with the biggest unrealized potential imo - but the default MeFi chronological post format is just not really a good fit for a general purpose media discussion site. Something more akin to the watercooler page, or other more easily discoverable navigation format would be much nicer as the default view.
posted by Jon Mitchell at 10:51 PM on January 4 [37 favorites]
posted by Jon Mitchell at 10:51 PM on January 4 [37 favorites]
I have posted a bit on Fanfare and have read many more posts where I haven't commented. It's been most enjoyable for me to participate in discussion when I've been following a show with weekly releases (RuPaul's Drag Race, Great British Bake Off) that have drawn recurring commenters to the threads. For movies, I tend to get that ghost town feeling others have mentioned around on the site before - if I did drop a comment on a movie thread opened years ago, who would read it now? And then everyone else who might come to the same thread, also seeing no recent comments, would do the same, and it's an ongoing negative feedback loop.
One thing I have noticed is that I browse Metafilter from my phone a lot, and the mobile version of the site is just extra non-functional for Fanfare. On mobile you don't get the big "Find a Show, Movie, Book, or Podcast" search box that shows up on the right hand side of the desktop site. If you're only scrolling down the Fanfare mobile home page, and you're not into the show du jour from whatever streaming site you're not subscribed to, it's easy to drift away. Also, if you do click into an episode post, on mobile you don't get that little show info box, and you don't see tags either. If you're lucky and they exist, you may notice the little "Previous Episode" and "Next Episode" links waaaaay down below all the comments, but they're easy to miss. And there's no way to navigate from an episode page to any other season of a TV show, or any other linked posts. As a super recent example, just tonight I was watching season 1 of Severance, since Apple TV+ is doing their free weekend. I found the rewatch series of posts, but that's only up through Episode 6 so far. It was basically by total chance - maybe a cross-link in someone's comment? I forget - that I was led to the original series of Fanfare posts when the season first aired a while ago. Even on desktop it's not necessarily obvious that there may be other related discussions - there's no direct link out of the rewatch post back to the original, you have to get there through the nondescript "Show Page" link in the Show Info box - which isn't even obvious that it's an internal Metafilter Fanfare link, since it's presented in the same way as the "IMDb Series Info" link. One might think "Show Page" leads off site to the official show website. Or even if you do click it, right now for Severance I can easily find the old posts because there's only one season of 9 episodes out. But if I were to try that with RuPaul's Drag Race and its 17 regular seasons not to mention All Stars etc., it gets very hard to go back in time without using overall site search, which admits itself to be janky. I've been an on and off Mefite for well over a decade and if I can't figure out how to navigate here smoothly, I figure lots of potential new blood for the site nopes out of Fanfare quickly.
TLDR I'd suggest improving navigation among related posts for TV shows and/or movie series, especially on mobile. Maybe something to put on the to-do list after the overall site migration rolls out.
posted by sigmagalator at 10:51 PM on January 4 [13 favorites]
One thing I have noticed is that I browse Metafilter from my phone a lot, and the mobile version of the site is just extra non-functional for Fanfare. On mobile you don't get the big "Find a Show, Movie, Book, or Podcast" search box that shows up on the right hand side of the desktop site. If you're only scrolling down the Fanfare mobile home page, and you're not into the show du jour from whatever streaming site you're not subscribed to, it's easy to drift away. Also, if you do click into an episode post, on mobile you don't get that little show info box, and you don't see tags either. If you're lucky and they exist, you may notice the little "Previous Episode" and "Next Episode" links waaaaay down below all the comments, but they're easy to miss. And there's no way to navigate from an episode page to any other season of a TV show, or any other linked posts. As a super recent example, just tonight I was watching season 1 of Severance, since Apple TV+ is doing their free weekend. I found the rewatch series of posts, but that's only up through Episode 6 so far. It was basically by total chance - maybe a cross-link in someone's comment? I forget - that I was led to the original series of Fanfare posts when the season first aired a while ago. Even on desktop it's not necessarily obvious that there may be other related discussions - there's no direct link out of the rewatch post back to the original, you have to get there through the nondescript "Show Page" link in the Show Info box - which isn't even obvious that it's an internal Metafilter Fanfare link, since it's presented in the same way as the "IMDb Series Info" link. One might think "Show Page" leads off site to the official show website. Or even if you do click it, right now for Severance I can easily find the old posts because there's only one season of 9 episodes out. But if I were to try that with RuPaul's Drag Race and its 17 regular seasons not to mention All Stars etc., it gets very hard to go back in time without using overall site search, which admits itself to be janky. I've been an on and off Mefite for well over a decade and if I can't figure out how to navigate here smoothly, I figure lots of potential new blood for the site nopes out of Fanfare quickly.
TLDR I'd suggest improving navigation among related posts for TV shows and/or movie series, especially on mobile. Maybe something to put on the to-do list after the overall site migration rolls out.
posted by sigmagalator at 10:51 PM on January 4 [13 favorites]
Single post reviews, like movies, can work OK even if there is low traffic- somebody can see and follow up on them years later. I have seen such threads blossom into (or back into) life after a long time- as the author and original contributors are notified of a change. That is a great feature of Fanfare, in fact.
Low traffic TV shows are much more tricky if they have multiple episodes. I recently looked at the thread for the Day of the Jackal remake - the posts don’t get as far as the end of the show- so there is nowhere to talk about final thoughts that do not include spoilers. How do log jams like that get fixed?
One problem here is that there is quite a lot of work required for the post creator to request a thread - and then make posts for each episode (often waiting till it comes out). An automatic episode creation mechanism which would create a separate post for each episode- featuring the generic episode description from the makers and appearing with the appropriate cadence - would be ideal. Ideally we would end up with posts for each episode and then for “all”. If I come across this show years later - and if it has not had much traffic - I can still interact with it.
Simplify series post creation would also mean, I suspect, that more gets created. I have been watching Las Palma on Netflix recently- and toying with the idea of making a post about my favourite ever Norwegian teen lesbian disaster movie romance featuring volcanologists and set in a Spanish speaking country - very keen to chat with others who have seen it - or to recommend it - but worried this might be a little too … niche … to be worth the effort.
posted by rongorongo at 4:14 AM on January 5 [6 favorites]
Low traffic TV shows are much more tricky if they have multiple episodes. I recently looked at the thread for the Day of the Jackal remake - the posts don’t get as far as the end of the show- so there is nowhere to talk about final thoughts that do not include spoilers. How do log jams like that get fixed?
One problem here is that there is quite a lot of work required for the post creator to request a thread - and then make posts for each episode (often waiting till it comes out). An automatic episode creation mechanism which would create a separate post for each episode- featuring the generic episode description from the makers and appearing with the appropriate cadence - would be ideal. Ideally we would end up with posts for each episode and then for “all”. If I come across this show years later - and if it has not had much traffic - I can still interact with it.
Simplify series post creation would also mean, I suspect, that more gets created. I have been watching Las Palma on Netflix recently- and toying with the idea of making a post about my favourite ever Norwegian teen lesbian disaster movie romance featuring volcanologists and set in a Spanish speaking country - very keen to chat with others who have seen it - or to recommend it - but worried this might be a little too … niche … to be worth the effort.
posted by rongorongo at 4:14 AM on January 5 [6 favorites]
I constantly forget about FanFare, and kind of wish that when something new was posted there, that post would appear as an FPP on the blue--like, you'd click the link to it and be in FanFare, but you'd discover it while looking at actual FPPs.
posted by mittens at 4:51 AM on January 5 [6 favorites]
posted by mittens at 4:51 AM on January 5 [6 favorites]
I agree with the overall sentiment that FanFare is under-trafficked, but I think media recommendations and identifications aren't really FanFare's function.
There was a previous Meta where I made some suggestions for improving FF, most of which were about labels, categories and navigation. One change that I think would make a big difference is making FF's front page default to the most active/recent comments in descending order. It's more likely to capture interest and discussion to see 37 people talking about Holy Mountain than to see the most recent post for Ep 6 of Doctor Odyssey (and I say that as a fan of DocOd). Chronological order comes off as a list of entries. Or worse, spoils things if I click into a recent post to get a sense of a show. To do that and minimize spoilers, I have to seek out the 1st ep post.
My guess is that most people want either "community" (to start or join something active, to be exposed to something serendipitously there's energy about) or to find a specific show by name (to judge if it's worth their time, or to see if there's activity about it). The front page functionality of listing posts newest-to-oldest does neither of those.
Very glad DOT is still with us :-)
posted by cocoagirl at 5:06 AM on January 5 [22 favorites]
There was a previous Meta where I made some suggestions for improving FF, most of which were about labels, categories and navigation. One change that I think would make a big difference is making FF's front page default to the most active/recent comments in descending order. It's more likely to capture interest and discussion to see 37 people talking about Holy Mountain than to see the most recent post for Ep 6 of Doctor Odyssey (and I say that as a fan of DocOd). Chronological order comes off as a list of entries. Or worse, spoils things if I click into a recent post to get a sense of a show. To do that and minimize spoilers, I have to seek out the 1st ep post.
My guess is that most people want either "community" (to start or join something active, to be exposed to something serendipitously there's energy about) or to find a specific show by name (to judge if it's worth their time, or to see if there's activity about it). The front page functionality of listing posts newest-to-oldest does neither of those.
Very glad DOT is still with us :-)
posted by cocoagirl at 5:06 AM on January 5 [22 favorites]
my favourite ever Norwegian teen lesbian disaster movie romance featuring volcanologists and set in a Spanish speaking country
I feel the genre has gotten played out.
posted by Lemkin at 6:45 AM on January 5 [11 favorites]
I feel the genre has gotten played out.
posted by Lemkin at 6:45 AM on January 5 [11 favorites]
Anyway, while I do crave engagement — these posts aren’t going to favorite themselves — there’s more to it.
The meat of my post in the blue last night about David Cronenberg’s Crash was: 1) an oral history of the film’s production and reception, and 2) a medium-length essay on the work. They were my humble effort to present something approaching “the best of the web”.
Naturally, I would love vigorous discussion of the film to ensue. However, such discussion would still be secondary to the post’s function.
If discussion were the main point, I could simply have posted “That Crash is something else, huh?” with a link to the IMDB entry. But that would have been a very bad post for the blue which should have gone into the purple instead.
Contrast this with DOT’s recent purple post about Ms. 45 - which I only noticed just now because I went looking for an example. The Collider and Ebert links buried in the thread would have furnished a fine post for the blue, under which the present discussion would have fit comfortably and been seen by more people.
To my mind, the purple’s proper function is a discussion forum for current stuff. Nosferatu looks good, but presumably has had nothing blue-worthy written about it yet. Put it in the purple and let people have at it.
posted by Lemkin at 7:28 AM on January 5 [6 favorites]
The meat of my post in the blue last night about David Cronenberg’s Crash was: 1) an oral history of the film’s production and reception, and 2) a medium-length essay on the work. They were my humble effort to present something approaching “the best of the web”.
Naturally, I would love vigorous discussion of the film to ensue. However, such discussion would still be secondary to the post’s function.
If discussion were the main point, I could simply have posted “That Crash is something else, huh?” with a link to the IMDB entry. But that would have been a very bad post for the blue which should have gone into the purple instead.
Contrast this with DOT’s recent purple post about Ms. 45 - which I only noticed just now because I went looking for an example. The Collider and Ebert links buried in the thread would have furnished a fine post for the blue, under which the present discussion would have fit comfortably and been seen by more people.
To my mind, the purple’s proper function is a discussion forum for current stuff. Nosferatu looks good, but presumably has had nothing blue-worthy written about it yet. Put it in the purple and let people have at it.
posted by Lemkin at 7:28 AM on January 5 [6 favorites]
there is no way your Crash discussion would be happening in FF, that is for sure
posted by ginger.beef at 7:53 AM on January 5 [3 favorites]
posted by ginger.beef at 7:53 AM on January 5 [3 favorites]
One change that I think would make a big difference is making FF's front page default to the most active/recent comments in descending order
Agree with this greatly, as well as the not-great mobile interface.
posted by warriorqueen at 8:18 AM on January 5 [11 favorites]
Agree with this greatly, as well as the not-great mobile interface.
posted by warriorqueen at 8:18 AM on January 5 [11 favorites]
The thing about using FF for "current" stuff is that how you define "current" gets pretty muddy.
Let's use the new Mike Leigh film Hard Truths as an example. Leigh is reasonably popular with MeFites and this is his last film and it's getting great reviews.
Do we post when it hits theaters? In the UK or the US? If I go to see it next weekend, how many other people will even have it playing near them to do the same? So do we wait for it to his streaming? It will probably rent first for like $19.99. Not that many people will do that. A few, but not a ton. So do we wait for it to be renting for less? Or wait for streaming? Let's say it hits Mubi for six months. Is that the right time? Not many people even have Mubi. So maybe the right answer is when it hits Amazon Prime or Netflix? Like six months later? What if it gets nominated for Oscars? Is that the right time? If you've made the post at any of these times, how will you gather people to discuss it if it gets a Criterion release in a year and a half? If Curzon puts out a Mike Leigh box set in three years, there will be several of us who buy that and watch it again. What about when, in X number of years, Mike Leigh shuffles off this mortal coil and it seems like a good time to rewatch?
When is the best time?
I think it's not a problem of what should be posted on the strictly chronological FF front page or how those posts should be timed. I think the problem is that the front page of FF should not be strictly chronological.
This is why my number one request for FF is and has always been a "bump" function. You could visit the existing post, click a link to bump it back to the front page, and mark a reason (re-release, sequel, post on the Blue, remake, new physical media edition, other) and then the post gets ported back to the front page for the conversation to continue with new comments.
This would:
Let's use the new Mike Leigh film Hard Truths as an example. Leigh is reasonably popular with MeFites and this is his last film and it's getting great reviews.
Do we post when it hits theaters? In the UK or the US? If I go to see it next weekend, how many other people will even have it playing near them to do the same? So do we wait for it to his streaming? It will probably rent first for like $19.99. Not that many people will do that. A few, but not a ton. So do we wait for it to be renting for less? Or wait for streaming? Let's say it hits Mubi for six months. Is that the right time? Not many people even have Mubi. So maybe the right answer is when it hits Amazon Prime or Netflix? Like six months later? What if it gets nominated for Oscars? Is that the right time? If you've made the post at any of these times, how will you gather people to discuss it if it gets a Criterion release in a year and a half? If Curzon puts out a Mike Leigh box set in three years, there will be several of us who buy that and watch it again. What about when, in X number of years, Mike Leigh shuffles off this mortal coil and it seems like a good time to rewatch?
When is the best time?
I think it's not a problem of what should be posted on the strictly chronological FF front page or how those posts should be timed. I think the problem is that the front page of FF should not be strictly chronological.
This is why my number one request for FF is and has always been a "bump" function. You could visit the existing post, click a link to bump it back to the front page, and mark a reason (re-release, sequel, post on the Blue, remake, new physical media edition, other) and then the post gets ported back to the front page for the conversation to continue with new comments.
This would:
- eliminate the "timing" issue
- make sure that things get multiple chances to attract traffic
- neutralize the "so-and-so is back on his bullshit" effect in which some weirdo like me posts six obscure movies in a row or some other niche person posts five episode posts for obscure anime or a rewatch of an old show
I've definitely had a few occasions where I wanted to write up a favorite show or movie and did it on MeFi rather than FanFare for the engagement. Conversely, there are things I've posted to FanFare that I wouldn't have made into an FPP, generally because it was a live event or because there wasn't some hook to "justify" an FPP about it. It's a weird dichotomy.
Things that might help:
- a way to cross-post to both MetaFilter and FanFare, to solve the "whither this post" problem (though you'd have to consider the effects of dividing up the conversation).
- Alternatively, enabling a prominent cross-link (like the kind on Projects that have been cross-posted) could add some nice synergy, supplementing new posts on one subsite with existing discussion from the other, or giving folks who come across closed MeFi threads a way to continue the conversation on FanFare (where threads are open indefinitely)
- a way to auto-fill the post form based on IMDb info
- including the enhanced search bar on mobile
- auto-add all posts from shows you follow to Recent Activity
- better surfacing of recent discussions -- there's Clubs, FanFare Talk, and the Watercooler, but they're up in the navbar where tbh I'm not sure most people even know they exist. Maybe rework the sidebar or expand the top bar to more prominently highlight active threads? A rotating feature to highlight older posts daily/weekly could also be nice.
More broadly, a more ambitious idea I've had is to expand the scope of the disused FanFare Groups feature into general-purpose groups on any topic -- sports, local, politics, hobbies, etc. The infrastructure is already there and it could turn an obscure feature into a much broader vehicle for conversations and community-building.
posted by Rhaomi at 8:34 AM on January 5 [7 favorites]
Things that might help:
- a way to cross-post to both MetaFilter and FanFare, to solve the "whither this post" problem (though you'd have to consider the effects of dividing up the conversation).
- Alternatively, enabling a prominent cross-link (like the kind on Projects that have been cross-posted) could add some nice synergy, supplementing new posts on one subsite with existing discussion from the other, or giving folks who come across closed MeFi threads a way to continue the conversation on FanFare (where threads are open indefinitely)
- a way to auto-fill the post form based on IMDb info
- including the enhanced search bar on mobile
- auto-add all posts from shows you follow to Recent Activity
- better surfacing of recent discussions -- there's Clubs, FanFare Talk, and the Watercooler, but they're up in the navbar where tbh I'm not sure most people even know they exist. Maybe rework the sidebar or expand the top bar to more prominently highlight active threads? A rotating feature to highlight older posts daily/weekly could also be nice.
More broadly, a more ambitious idea I've had is to expand the scope of the disused FanFare Groups feature into general-purpose groups on any topic -- sports, local, politics, hobbies, etc. The infrastructure is already there and it could turn an obscure feature into a much broader vehicle for conversations and community-building.
posted by Rhaomi at 8:34 AM on January 5 [7 favorites]
Cross-posting is a great idea. I don't know entirely how that could work though, since posts on the Blue close after a while.
I really does seem like we could find a way to make sort of "stub" posts, though.
Let's say the next Evil Dead movie comes out, so folks will inevitably be rewatching Evil Dead Rise. What if you could make a shorter post that would appear on the FF front page and would let you add a blurb, but did not have a "more inside" or its own comments. Clicking into it would redirect you to the existing page, to which this blurb would be appended after the main post.
posted by DirtyOldTown at 8:40 AM on January 5 [2 favorites]
I really does seem like we could find a way to make sort of "stub" posts, though.
Let's say the next Evil Dead movie comes out, so folks will inevitably be rewatching Evil Dead Rise. What if you could make a shorter post that would appear on the FF front page and would let you add a blurb, but did not have a "more inside" or its own comments. Clicking into it would redirect you to the existing page, to which this blurb would be appended after the main post.
posted by DirtyOldTown at 8:40 AM on January 5 [2 favorites]
A dedicated politics sub-board might drain some of the venom out of the blue.
Or it might not.
posted by Lemkin at 9:02 AM on January 5
Or it might not.
posted by Lemkin at 9:02 AM on January 5
Alternate proposal: how about everybody just starts coming over to my house every Saturday and we discuss the films over pie afterwards?
posted by DirtyOldTown at 9:19 AM on January 5 [32 favorites]
posted by DirtyOldTown at 9:19 AM on January 5 [32 favorites]
Only if we can devote 15 min of each session to pure venom
posted by ginger.beef at 9:26 AM on January 5 [6 favorites]
posted by ginger.beef at 9:26 AM on January 5 [6 favorites]
I love FanFare and check it every day. I have only ever made 1 post, but I do try to comment on the films/shows etc., that I have seen, if I have anything worthwhile to say. DOT forevah!!!1!
posted by supermedusa at 10:17 AM on January 5 [11 favorites]
posted by supermedusa at 10:17 AM on January 5 [11 favorites]
I have been watching Las Palma on Netflix recently- and toying with the idea of making a post about my favourite ever Norwegian teen lesbian disaster movie romance featuring volcanologists and set in a Spanish speaking country - very keen to chat with others who have seen it - or to recommend it - but worried this might be a little too … niche … to be worth the effort.
puuuuleeezzeeee!!!
posted by supermedusa at 10:19 AM on January 5 [3 favorites]
puuuuleeezzeeee!!!
posted by supermedusa at 10:19 AM on January 5 [3 favorites]
I just don't watch anything fast enough to really participate as often as I'd like. And if I finally catch up on a show that everyone's watched a few months or even a year ago, there is no point in adding a comment because the discussion has already come and gone. Like, those of you who watch a lot of movies all the time are impressive to me!
It is a shame FanFare is so underused, I agree. I wish I were more galvanized to watch more media but I am too restless to sit still for binging. Two to three episodes is my max; two hours the same for movies. This is something I blame on my flavour of ADHD. I need to move, to do, and sitting still to watch a thing for long periods of time makes me antsy.
posted by Kitteh at 10:33 AM on January 5 [4 favorites]
It is a shame FanFare is so underused, I agree. I wish I were more galvanized to watch more media but I am too restless to sit still for binging. Two to three episodes is my max; two hours the same for movies. This is something I blame on my flavour of ADHD. I need to move, to do, and sitting still to watch a thing for long periods of time makes me antsy.
posted by Kitteh at 10:33 AM on January 5 [4 favorites]
I think it generally only works really well for shows with fairly big obsessive followings who want to watch each episode as soon as it comes out. For example, the Succession threads were great. Or likewise, movies that have made a big splash like Barbie also generate a lot of discussion on Fanfare.
I agree that "making FF's front page default to the most active/recent comments in descending order " would be a good change - I often will go heavy on the "likes" if I come across a thread that seems mostly dead in hopes that at least lets people know there is still some interest. Likewise, if someone "likes" one of my comments in an old post it does prompt me to loop back to see if there has been new discussion.
posted by coffeecat at 10:47 AM on January 5 [3 favorites]
I agree that "making FF's front page default to the most active/recent comments in descending order " would be a good change - I often will go heavy on the "likes" if I come across a thread that seems mostly dead in hopes that at least lets people know there is still some interest. Likewise, if someone "likes" one of my comments in an old post it does prompt me to loop back to see if there has been new discussion.
posted by coffeecat at 10:47 AM on January 5 [3 favorites]
What if a threshold of activity pushed a FF thread to front page of the blue?
Not sure how the metrics governing Best of declarations work, but like that
posted by ginger.beef at 11:00 AM on January 5 [3 favorites]
Not sure how the metrics governing Best of declarations work, but like that
posted by ginger.beef at 11:00 AM on January 5 [3 favorites]
“Fan”fare would have more activity if posters linked to where their film/episode could be actually seen. Posts about bad or mediocre films seem to be chiefly made to increase the posters’ activity counts—most of the time, the posters don’t seem to explain what they liked about these films. Very few posts are about undiscovered gems.
posted by Ideefixe at 11:17 AM on January 5 [5 favorites]
posted by Ideefixe at 11:17 AM on January 5 [5 favorites]
Some of the ideas about improving the mechanics of the subsite could be improvements, but I think the main problem is that there aren’t enough people on Metafilter to actually have discussions about tv and other media. Sometimes I finish an episode of something and do want to comment on it, but if there’s no post I don’t bother to make one. Sometimes I am curious what others think of an episode and there’s a post, but no comments. It feels like there isn’t the critical mass to spark discussion.
posted by snofoam at 11:30 AM on January 5 [3 favorites]
posted by snofoam at 11:30 AM on January 5 [3 favorites]
I do think defaulting to recent comments view would help a bit. At least some posts might get enough conversation going that way, and when a movie hits streaming, the second wave of conversation will be bigger if it is at the top and you don’t have to do a search.
posted by snofoam at 11:35 AM on January 5 [2 favorites]
posted by snofoam at 11:35 AM on January 5 [2 favorites]
Will just drop the Activity Stats page into this thread too — filtering on Fanfare shows that:
- on an average day, there are 4-7 posts and 30-60 comments
- posts get around 10 comments
- in an average month, around 3-400 users make one or more comments or posts
- 10% MetaFilter's users have ever commented or posted on Fanfare (4,571 of 47,835)
- Fanfare is even more dominated by long-time users than the rest of MetaFilter — two-thirds of comments and posts are by user accounts 15+ years old
posted by Klipspringer at 11:52 AM on January 5 [6 favorites]
- on an average day, there are 4-7 posts and 30-60 comments
- posts get around 10 comments
- in an average month, around 3-400 users make one or more comments or posts
- 10% MetaFilter's users have ever commented or posted on Fanfare (4,571 of 47,835)
- Fanfare is even more dominated by long-time users than the rest of MetaFilter — two-thirds of comments and posts are by user accounts 15+ years old
posted by Klipspringer at 11:52 AM on January 5 [6 favorites]
As someone who is only now watching the first season of Ted Lasso, Fanfare has only rarely been a useful discussion place for me. But when things like oral histories or bigger essays are posted to the blue, I frequently will read those, even if I don’t comment, and enjoy seeing them.
posted by PussKillian at 11:56 AM on January 5 [5 favorites]
posted by PussKillian at 11:56 AM on January 5 [5 favorites]
Fanfare is even more dominated by long-time users than the rest of MetaFilter
To me that suggests that some people are into discussing media, and some just aren't. You can't force more engagement if someone simply isn't interested in what's being offered.
posted by Greg_Ace at 11:58 AM on January 5 [2 favorites]
To me that suggests that some people are into discussing media, and some just aren't. You can't force more engagement if someone simply isn't interested in what's being offered.
posted by Greg_Ace at 11:58 AM on January 5 [2 favorites]
I think it's important to remember that while MetaFilter was founded with a "best of the web" ethos, there was no talk of this at all when FanFare was founded. There was never a curatorial intent to that subsite, at least not that I ever saw.
The (repeatedly stated, at least informally) goal of FanFare was for there to be a place that the people who frequented MetaFilter could discuss media with each other. That's the curation: the userbase.
Within that spirit "Hey, I just saw this, here is a post about it" seems completely fair, no matter what the movie/show/book/podcast is. And within those posts, there is plenty of room for people to explain why they did or did not like something, with other MeFites. That's great. That's what it's for.
The only issues I've ever had on FF are people who try to retroactively curate the purple by dropping in on posts for things they don't like just to threadshit and announce what is and isn't worth discussing.
It's never particularly difficult to differentiate between someone giving an honest, "You liked this? Huh. It didn't work for me" and someone attempting to shut down a conversation. This has always been frustrating and mystifying to me, for the simple reason that if you do not think something is worth discussing, you literally are not required to do that.
posted by DirtyOldTown at 12:11 PM on January 5 [13 favorites]
The (repeatedly stated, at least informally) goal of FanFare was for there to be a place that the people who frequented MetaFilter could discuss media with each other. That's the curation: the userbase.
Within that spirit "Hey, I just saw this, here is a post about it" seems completely fair, no matter what the movie/show/book/podcast is. And within those posts, there is plenty of room for people to explain why they did or did not like something, with other MeFites. That's great. That's what it's for.
The only issues I've ever had on FF are people who try to retroactively curate the purple by dropping in on posts for things they don't like just to threadshit and announce what is and isn't worth discussing.
It's never particularly difficult to differentiate between someone giving an honest, "You liked this? Huh. It didn't work for me" and someone attempting to shut down a conversation. This has always been frustrating and mystifying to me, for the simple reason that if you do not think something is worth discussing, you literally are not required to do that.
posted by DirtyOldTown at 12:11 PM on January 5 [13 favorites]
I watch media really slowly, and so I only occasionally make comments on FanFare, although it’s a place where I’ve found stuff to watch, read, etc, and I add comments to dormant posts partly out of a desire for a place to leave notes for shows that I watch with sometimes weeks between episodes. Sometimes they get traction, sometimes they don’t.
JHarris posted recently about The Amazing Digital Circus (pilot episode FF post here, which got me to watch all 4 current episodes, which I enjoyed a great deal (although my comments are too brief). I am super-glad he did.
posted by GenjiandProust at 12:16 PM on January 5 [4 favorites]
JHarris posted recently about The Amazing Digital Circus (pilot episode FF post here, which got me to watch all 4 current episodes, which I enjoyed a great deal (although my comments are too brief). I am super-glad he did.
posted by GenjiandProust at 12:16 PM on January 5 [4 favorites]
I will say that (mostly) whenever I watch something new (to me) I will go check if there is a FF post about it, at the very least to read what others have said. (and to comment if it's not so far past the post date to seem pointless).
posted by supermedusa at 12:17 PM on January 5 [11 favorites]
posted by supermedusa at 12:17 PM on January 5 [11 favorites]
to comment if it's not so far past the post date to seem pointless
DO IT. It's never pointless!
posted by DirtyOldTown at 12:18 PM on January 5 [14 favorites]
DO IT. It's never pointless!
posted by DirtyOldTown at 12:18 PM on January 5 [14 favorites]
Same here, supermedusa
Over time I have come to appreciate a number of regulars' sensibilities
posted by ginger.beef at 12:19 PM on January 5 [2 favorites]
Over time I have come to appreciate a number of regulars' sensibilities
posted by ginger.beef at 12:19 PM on January 5 [2 favorites]
Over time I have come to appreciate a number of regulars' sensibilities
Oh heck yeah. Just to pick a few, if miss-lapin recommends a horror film, I'm gonna see it. If Empress Callypgos shares thoughts on an old studio gem, I may see it so I can compare notes. I cannot tell you how many times I post something and say "Here's a great one y'all should see!" and within a day there's an Ashwagandha comment on it and yeah, they've already seen it and have interesting thoughts to share.
posted by DirtyOldTown at 12:24 PM on January 5 [11 favorites]
Oh heck yeah. Just to pick a few, if miss-lapin recommends a horror film, I'm gonna see it. If Empress Callypgos shares thoughts on an old studio gem, I may see it so I can compare notes. I cannot tell you how many times I post something and say "Here's a great one y'all should see!" and within a day there's an Ashwagandha comment on it and yeah, they've already seen it and have interesting thoughts to share.
posted by DirtyOldTown at 12:24 PM on January 5 [11 favorites]
I pretty regularly look for comments about media I've consumed, but I think FanFare is even more present-focused than the blue. My watching often isn't current stuff, for instance, and when the last comment in a thread about a show or movie is months or years old, it seems like the probability of discussion is going to be low.
I do like the practice of posting media as an FPP, and the Crash post/discussion is a good example. I don't know how large the largest thread ever on FF was, but there have been various large media discussions on the blue over the years.
posted by cupcakeninja at 12:29 PM on January 5 [2 favorites]
I do like the practice of posting media as an FPP, and the Crash post/discussion is a good example. I don't know how large the largest thread ever on FF was, but there have been various large media discussions on the blue over the years.
posted by cupcakeninja at 12:29 PM on January 5 [2 favorites]
I also go look for FF threads on old(er) shows I watch and I find them valuable, and I do think it is worthwhile to drop a comment. There is always a lot of angst in MeTa about ‘comments aren’t worthwhile in a ghost town’ but maybe reframe FF threads as ‘slow burn’ instead? Renewed attention to old threads can be so interesting. Highlighting posts with recent activity on the FF print page would be really helpful, I think. As would a built-in ‘look this up for where to stream it’ button/widget to perform a lookup at page-load time since any user-input info about that will quickly go stale.
posted by janell at 12:46 PM on January 5 [4 favorites]
posted by janell at 12:46 PM on January 5 [4 favorites]
Yes, Fanfare Clubs would seem to be a way to gather groups of interested viewers and increase the possibility of even slower burn discussion, but they are also hard to navigate, again especially on mobile but also even on desktop. The only way to even know they exist on mobile is to scroll all the way down below all the current front page posts (or skip to menu, if you thought to do so at the very top of the page, but I would bet most new visitors casually browsing on mobile would not) and then notice that some new options have appeared below FanFare - FanFare Talk, Clubs, and My FanFare. If you do click the Clubs link, the new page describes what clubs are briefly on top, which is great! But then everything is just alphabetical and there's no indicator of whether a club is currently active or not. There's not even a year in the post dates visible - not on the overall club post, nor even on the posts contained within that club! So some topic may look very cool but then three clicks later you discover that nobody's participated in it since 2017. Though scrolling down the list of club titles does give you stuff like "2019 Tournament of Books" and "Olympics Rio 2016" so you get the feeling that things may be pretty dead right off the bat. Would be nice to somehow archive old clubs for real-time events like that, maybe.
Even the desktop site doesn't do a great job of leading people to Clubs - there's at least the big navigation box on the right hand side of the Fanfare home page, but that only lists "Special Events" which are not the same as Clubs. Clubs are just a very small tab link up at the top.
If by chance you clicked FanFare Talk instead, there are a few more recent posts there at least, compared to Clubs! To go back to my Severance example, there's actually a post there right now about the season 1 rewatch! And the poster helpfully did leave a link out to the first rewatch post in that FanFare talk thread - but then after that first breadcrumb it's back to navigating on your own.
And My Fanfare would be great, but it's almost impossible to tailor it on mobile. If you go to that landing page, and then try Set Preferences, there's no way to add a new show from the page you land on. I do have a few shows added in My Fanfare, because of the times I visited the desktop site and was able to click the add link from the show box on episode posts, but that's not visible on mobile. Why couldn't there be a show/movie/book/etc. title search box right there on that Set Preferences page? There is a box there to add tags (though again, can't see post tags on mobile either). The tag box does give me suggestions of things to add to it, because I've posted enough on Fanfare for it to guess - I assume total newbies would get nothing, or a random useless selection - but even then, should I add "dragrace" or "rupaulsdragrace" or "dragraceallstars" to follow what I want? No way to know - and even if you pick something, you're then reliant on anybody making new posts remembering to apply that tag, or else you're out of luck.
Even with some things added to My Fanfare though, I'm not sure how I would know if someone out there was going back for a personal rewatch of RuPaul's Drag Race Season 1, say, and leaving interesting comments for me to engage with. It seems like the only way to know would be to scroll backwards in time through my entire My FanFare and look for the new comment indicator? Or would I need to add every post of every episode of a show to my activity, if I'm not actually commenting on that specific episode, and then it'll show up in Recent Activity to highlight new comments? That feels like overkill after I've already set My FanFare to follow the entire show series, and I think it would be pretty hard for a new user who doesn't have years of experience on the blue to even come up with that concept of interfacing with the site.
I kind of like the slow burn discussion idea but there has to be a better way to filter down to a specific show or season of a show or even genre to make it possible for me to notice discussions I might like to join.
posted by sigmagalator at 1:17 PM on January 5 [4 favorites]
Even the desktop site doesn't do a great job of leading people to Clubs - there's at least the big navigation box on the right hand side of the Fanfare home page, but that only lists "Special Events" which are not the same as Clubs. Clubs are just a very small tab link up at the top.
If by chance you clicked FanFare Talk instead, there are a few more recent posts there at least, compared to Clubs! To go back to my Severance example, there's actually a post there right now about the season 1 rewatch! And the poster helpfully did leave a link out to the first rewatch post in that FanFare talk thread - but then after that first breadcrumb it's back to navigating on your own.
And My Fanfare would be great, but it's almost impossible to tailor it on mobile. If you go to that landing page, and then try Set Preferences, there's no way to add a new show from the page you land on. I do have a few shows added in My Fanfare, because of the times I visited the desktop site and was able to click the add link from the show box on episode posts, but that's not visible on mobile. Why couldn't there be a show/movie/book/etc. title search box right there on that Set Preferences page? There is a box there to add tags (though again, can't see post tags on mobile either). The tag box does give me suggestions of things to add to it, because I've posted enough on Fanfare for it to guess - I assume total newbies would get nothing, or a random useless selection - but even then, should I add "dragrace" or "rupaulsdragrace" or "dragraceallstars" to follow what I want? No way to know - and even if you pick something, you're then reliant on anybody making new posts remembering to apply that tag, or else you're out of luck.
Even with some things added to My Fanfare though, I'm not sure how I would know if someone out there was going back for a personal rewatch of RuPaul's Drag Race Season 1, say, and leaving interesting comments for me to engage with. It seems like the only way to know would be to scroll backwards in time through my entire My FanFare and look for the new comment indicator? Or would I need to add every post of every episode of a show to my activity, if I'm not actually commenting on that specific episode, and then it'll show up in Recent Activity to highlight new comments? That feels like overkill after I've already set My FanFare to follow the entire show series, and I think it would be pretty hard for a new user who doesn't have years of experience on the blue to even come up with that concept of interfacing with the site.
I kind of like the slow burn discussion idea but there has to be a better way to filter down to a specific show or season of a show or even genre to make it possible for me to notice discussions I might like to join.
posted by sigmagalator at 1:17 PM on January 5 [4 favorites]
I think clubs were more or less my idea (okay they were, but saying so feels weird/braggy and it's not a great brag anyway). The MeFi Horror Club was the first. The problem I had was that they really only work under a benevolent dictator chooses all the films model (or something that makes the choices pre-ordained.)
I tried hard to make a system to set it up and keep it going, but it always craps out looking for the next person needed to choose.
They can do fine but someone basically has to agree to both take on sole responsibility and to solicit and incorporate community input so that other people can be involved.
posted by DirtyOldTown at 1:36 PM on January 5 [3 favorites]
I tried hard to make a system to set it up and keep it going, but it always craps out looking for the next person needed to choose.
They can do fine but someone basically has to agree to both take on sole responsibility and to solicit and incorporate community input so that other people can be involved.
posted by DirtyOldTown at 1:36 PM on January 5 [3 favorites]
(Amazing Digital Circus is wild.)
"MeFi Horror Club" - there was one? Is there?
posted by doctornemo at 1:55 PM on January 5 [1 favorite]
"MeFi Horror Club" - there was one? Is there?
posted by doctornemo at 1:55 PM on January 5 [1 favorite]
For me, I keep forgetting FanFare is there. I check the blue up to several times a day, but don't associate media (movies, tv) with the site unless someone does an analytical post, or perhaps a preview one (article about something upcoming, a trailer, etc.).
posted by doctornemo at 1:57 PM on January 5 [2 favorites]
posted by doctornemo at 1:57 PM on January 5 [2 favorites]
just have posts show up in last post in order rather than chronological. that way going to fanfare will show the most recent and active discussion first, fostering further discussion. E.g., if I post in fanfare whatever i post in will move to the top of the queue until someone posts in another thread, at which point it will move down one.
posted by Sebmojo at 2:41 PM on January 5 [10 favorites]
posted by Sebmojo at 2:41 PM on January 5 [10 favorites]
FanFare's founding idea was, "What are we doing to do with all these fucking Game of Thrones people and the book knowledge problem?" It's always been about TV group watches, but TV is more fragmented now.
Adding video games might be a good idea. Should have been done long ago.
Movies are a bad fit for FF, given how people trickle in -- made worse by streaming, made worse by COVID for me at least. I don't like to go to theaters much anymore so I even miss the wide release conversations that occur around the biggest movies. I don't mind the asynchronous conversation personally though.
I think people should go ahead and comment with any interesting comment they got in FF, at any time. With Recent Activity the conversation is never that dead. I love seeing new comments on old movies pop up there.
“Fan”fare would have more activity if posters linked to where their film/episode could be actually seen. Posts about bad or mediocre films seem to be chiefly made to increase the posters’ activity counts—most of the time, the posters don’t seem to explain what they liked about these films. Very few posts are about undiscovered gems.
Is all that actually happening that much? I don't notice that very much. Personally I try to put review information, where-to-watch information, and ratings into every post. Sometimes I forget part of it or I'm in a big rush. I post movies that I've seen that or good or bad that I feel like I want to hear what people talk about.
The idea of people posting like mediocre foreign movies to FF for clout is wild to me.
posted by fleacircus at 3:16 PM on January 5 [3 favorites]
Adding video games might be a good idea. Should have been done long ago.
Movies are a bad fit for FF, given how people trickle in -- made worse by streaming, made worse by COVID for me at least. I don't like to go to theaters much anymore so I even miss the wide release conversations that occur around the biggest movies. I don't mind the asynchronous conversation personally though.
I think people should go ahead and comment with any interesting comment they got in FF, at any time. With Recent Activity the conversation is never that dead. I love seeing new comments on old movies pop up there.
“Fan”fare would have more activity if posters linked to where their film/episode could be actually seen. Posts about bad or mediocre films seem to be chiefly made to increase the posters’ activity counts—most of the time, the posters don’t seem to explain what they liked about these films. Very few posts are about undiscovered gems.
Is all that actually happening that much? I don't notice that very much. Personally I try to put review information, where-to-watch information, and ratings into every post. Sometimes I forget part of it or I'm in a big rush. I post movies that I've seen that or good or bad that I feel like I want to hear what people talk about.
The idea of people posting like mediocre foreign movies to FF for clout is wild to me.
posted by fleacircus at 3:16 PM on January 5 [3 favorites]
How about a one-line automatic note on the blue, highlighting what FanFare posts are getting the most comments that day? (Not in the banner, interspersed with the posts.)
posted by zompist at 3:38 PM on January 5 [2 favorites]
posted by zompist at 3:38 PM on January 5 [2 favorites]
I like FF and I've actually discovered a couple of movies there (such as Big Boys). If I post about a movie or a TV show, it's because I thought was interesting and I want to share it and possibly discuss it with people. That goes better sometimes than others but I don't mind it.
(I will share where something is streaming if it's exclusive to a service, but I feel like things change so often that that information tends to go out of date pretty quickly.)
I believe there have been a couple of instances of video games posted there.
I won't leave comments in threads that are years old, but if it's still relatively recent, I will add a comment.
posted by edencosmic at 3:38 PM on January 5 [1 favorite]
(I will share where something is streaming if it's exclusive to a service, but I feel like things change so often that that information tends to go out of date pretty quickly.)
I believe there have been a couple of instances of video games posted there.
I won't leave comments in threads that are years old, but if it's still relatively recent, I will add a comment.
posted by edencosmic at 3:38 PM on January 5 [1 favorite]
I very very rarely post on it because I don't watch a lot of television, but I do frequently read FF because I find other people's habits interesting, and it's a way of awareness of culture I'd never otherwise know about.
posted by Fiasco da Gama at 3:49 PM on January 5 [3 favorites]
posted by Fiasco da Gama at 3:49 PM on January 5 [3 favorites]
Maybe we could do occasional (weekly? monthly?) FPP's that recap the new posts on FF.
Would that be permissible/acceptable, mods?
posted by DirtyOldTown at 4:21 PM on January 5 [6 favorites]
Would that be permissible/acceptable, mods?
posted by DirtyOldTown at 4:21 PM on January 5 [6 favorites]
I want to like FanFare but I always end up bouncing off it. Either I watch something and there's no discussion about it so posting feels futile or I watch something and the discussion is already so lengthy that posting feels futile. Like a lot of other people, I was using Apple's free weekend to watch Ted Lasso but I couldn't see any way to get into those episode by episode discussions that already exist.
It might be helpful if the site could automatically generate discussions for episodes, seasons and entire shows. Right now, some shows get one thread and other shows get one per episode and many of the episodic shows often eventually taper off was the person meeting the posts gets busy. That would give people more choices on the level of discussion without doing the work to create new entries and allow binge-watchers an easier in than episode at-a-time.
posted by jacquilynne at 4:37 PM on January 5 [4 favorites]
It might be helpful if the site could automatically generate discussions for episodes, seasons and entire shows. Right now, some shows get one thread and other shows get one per episode and many of the episodic shows often eventually taper off was the person meeting the posts gets busy. That would give people more choices on the level of discussion without doing the work to create new entries and allow binge-watchers an easier in than episode at-a-time.
posted by jacquilynne at 4:37 PM on January 5 [4 favorites]
On mobile you don't get the big "Find a Show, Movie, Book, or Podcast" search box that shows up on the right hand side of the desktop site.
You do, and it's easy to access if you know how:
• Just below the top right of the main FanFare page (or your My FanFare page), there's a white box with gray underlined down arrow.
• Tap the arrow, and it takes you to the bottom of the FanFare page...
• Where you'll see the "Find a Show, Movie, Book, or Podcast" search box.
posted by ShooBoo at 5:47 PM on January 5 [1 favorite]
You do, and it's easy to access if you know how:
• Just below the top right of the main FanFare page (or your My FanFare page), there's a white box with gray underlined down arrow.
• Tap the arrow, and it takes you to the bottom of the FanFare page...
• Where you'll see the "Find a Show, Movie, Book, or Podcast" search box.
posted by ShooBoo at 5:47 PM on January 5 [1 favorite]
The idea of people posting like mediocre foreign movies to FF for clout is wild to me.
I promise you, there is zero clout in it.
posted by praemunire at 5:52 PM on January 5 [10 favorites]
I promise you, there is zero clout in it.
posted by praemunire at 5:52 PM on January 5 [10 favorites]
[cancels clout acquisition plans]
posted by Lemkin at 6:23 PM on January 5 [8 favorites]
posted by Lemkin at 6:23 PM on January 5 [8 favorites]
Mod note: How about a one-line automatic note on the blue, highlighting what FanFare posts are getting the most comments that day? (Not in the banner, interspersed with the posts.)
There's currently no way to automate that, but I like that general idea if taken further, like auto note about AskMe, Projects, and MeTa. We should revisit this once the new site is up.
Maybe we could do occasional (weekly? monthly?) FPP's that recap the new posts on FF.
Would that be permissible/acceptable, mods?
Have posted this in the mod slack to see what others think, aka if there's some problematic element, will let you know in day or so.
posted by Brandon Blatcher (staff) at 6:46 PM on January 5 [3 favorites]
There's currently no way to automate that, but I like that general idea if taken further, like auto note about AskMe, Projects, and MeTa. We should revisit this once the new site is up.
Maybe we could do occasional (weekly? monthly?) FPP's that recap the new posts on FF.
Would that be permissible/acceptable, mods?
Have posted this in the mod slack to see what others think, aka if there's some problematic element, will let you know in day or so.
posted by Brandon Blatcher (staff) at 6:46 PM on January 5 [3 favorites]
Right now, some shows get one thread and other shows get one per episode and many of the episodic shows often eventually taper off was the person meeting the posts gets busy.
There's nothing preventing a different person from picking up where they left off. We can all be the change we want to see!
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 6:52 PM on January 5 [7 favorites]
There's nothing preventing a different person from picking up where they left off. We can all be the change we want to see!
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 6:52 PM on January 5 [7 favorites]
I guess I would also say re. FanFare that, like mediocre film and television enjoyed by small numbers of fans, a thing on the internet does not need to be widely popular to be of value.
posted by Fiasco da Gama at 7:01 PM on January 5 [4 favorites]
posted by Fiasco da Gama at 7:01 PM on January 5 [4 favorites]
There's nothing preventing a different person from picking up where they left off. We can all be the change we want to see!
If that was working out thus far, would this thread be here?
posted by jacquilynne at 7:14 PM on January 5 [1 favorite]
If that was working out thus far, would this thread be here?
posted by jacquilynne at 7:14 PM on January 5 [1 favorite]
I'm also not convinced that anyone posts to Fanfare for any kind of clout. That said, I've posted there a lot and I have to confess I'm baffled about what does and doesn't get much in the way of comments. (Presumably the problem is that I'm not much of a conversationalist in the "real world" either.)
I just post about things I saw or read (or, occasionally, played) which were interesting, whether good or bad (most of the time good, occasionally bad [hello, worst Halloween films]).
I'd agree with the general pointlessness of posting on old threads; it's a habit I should break myself of. People don't typically show up to reply in any way so it feels a bit like dropping a penny down a well. It seems like there's a short period where posts get any sort of comment, then after that nothing, and usually what gets a lot of comments is new. (Rocky Horror and Stop Making Sense both got a fair bit of comment but those were definitely exceptions to my usual experience.)
On the whole I'm finding it kind of ... just consistently not rewarding? I keep hoping for conversation and keep being disappointed (again, I can imagine this being a me problem rather than a site problem). [shrugs]
I don't know what motivates others, or what "best practices" are, and couldn't begin to say what changes would improve the situation.
posted by johnofjack at 7:18 PM on January 5 [10 favorites]
I just post about things I saw or read (or, occasionally, played) which were interesting, whether good or bad (most of the time good, occasionally bad [hello, worst Halloween films]).
I'd agree with the general pointlessness of posting on old threads; it's a habit I should break myself of. People don't typically show up to reply in any way so it feels a bit like dropping a penny down a well. It seems like there's a short period where posts get any sort of comment, then after that nothing, and usually what gets a lot of comments is new. (Rocky Horror and Stop Making Sense both got a fair bit of comment but those were definitely exceptions to my usual experience.)
On the whole I'm finding it kind of ... just consistently not rewarding? I keep hoping for conversation and keep being disappointed (again, I can imagine this being a me problem rather than a site problem). [shrugs]
I don't know what motivates others, or what "best practices" are, and couldn't begin to say what changes would improve the situation.
posted by johnofjack at 7:18 PM on January 5 [10 favorites]
> There's nothing preventing a different person from picking up where they left off. We can all be the change we want to see!
If that was working out thus far, would this thread be here?
If people didn't need encouragement to make posts, would there be a need for this thread?
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 7:24 PM on January 5 [2 favorites]
If that was working out thus far, would this thread be here?
If people didn't need encouragement to make posts, would there be a need for this thread?
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 7:24 PM on January 5 [2 favorites]
Ideefixe, you're welcome to post about any undiscovered/underappreciated gems you come across.
Also people used to post JustWatch links in FF posts because part of the problem with posting where something can be streamed as that changes all the time. Unfortunately JustWatch isn't always reliable, but it's pretty much the best option. This is actually something I made a FF talk post about last February. But honestly it's not a big deal for me to google a movie and see where I might be able to watch it.
posted by miss-lapin at 7:43 PM on January 5 [3 favorites]
Also people used to post JustWatch links in FF posts because part of the problem with posting where something can be streamed as that changes all the time. Unfortunately JustWatch isn't always reliable, but it's pretty much the best option. This is actually something I made a FF talk post about last February. But honestly it's not a big deal for me to google a movie and see where I might be able to watch it.
posted by miss-lapin at 7:43 PM on January 5 [3 favorites]
On mobile you don't get the big "Find a Show, Movie, Book, or Podcast" search box that shows up on the right hand side of the desktop site.
You do, and it's easy to access if you know how:
• Just below the top right of the main FanFare page (or your My FanFare page), there's a white box with gray underlined down arrow.
• Tap the arrow, and it takes you to the bottom of the FanFare page...
• Where you'll see the "Find a Show, Movie, Book, or Podcast" search box.
Ahhhh, solved the problem - I had Preferences set to the Classic theme, which does not show the white box with gray arrow, nor the "Find a Show, Movie, Book, or Podcast" search box. Instead it shows a "skip to menu" text link at the top where the arrow would be, and for some reason at the bottom of the page the search box doesn't appear. Switching to a different theme such as Dark Modern makes it behave as described here, and I suppose most new users wouldn't have the Classic theme on so it might be a bit easier for them to navigate. Confused me deeply though!
posted by sigmagalator at 7:54 PM on January 5 [2 favorites]
You do, and it's easy to access if you know how:
• Just below the top right of the main FanFare page (or your My FanFare page), there's a white box with gray underlined down arrow.
• Tap the arrow, and it takes you to the bottom of the FanFare page...
• Where you'll see the "Find a Show, Movie, Book, or Podcast" search box.
Ahhhh, solved the problem - I had Preferences set to the Classic theme, which does not show the white box with gray arrow, nor the "Find a Show, Movie, Book, or Podcast" search box. Instead it shows a "skip to menu" text link at the top where the arrow would be, and for some reason at the bottom of the page the search box doesn't appear. Switching to a different theme such as Dark Modern makes it behave as described here, and I suppose most new users wouldn't have the Classic theme on so it might be a bit easier for them to navigate. Confused me deeply though!
posted by sigmagalator at 7:54 PM on January 5 [2 favorites]
I think over the next week, I may play around with how I post movies on FanFare. I am going to--at least in some cases--try to inject a little more personality and "why this is worth noticing" above the fold and see if that helps anything.
posted by DirtyOldTown at 8:47 PM on January 5 [5 favorites]
posted by DirtyOldTown at 8:47 PM on January 5 [5 favorites]
I forget about FF. For me, the couple times I waded into FF, I didn’t really get a sense of how I could incorporate it into my internet life in a regular and fulfilling way. I agree with all the other comments that sorting non-chronologically would be a great tweak.
Also, I am quite active on Letterboxd, which has a different flavor from mefi, but still has a conversational, wry, nerdy social media tone. So that is currently the first place I think to go when I have a hot take on a movie.
The main thing I’m missing from Letterboxd though is the feeling of a group of people participating in one conversation together. LB is very much “we are all shouting from different rooftops at different times”. And it is fun to hear what is being shouted! but FF could definitely compel me to be an active user in a way LB doesn’t - if I could actually have a synchronous, back and forth with people on “hot” posts that hover near the top of the feed.
posted by seemoorglass at 8:48 PM on January 5 [4 favorites]
Also, I am quite active on Letterboxd, which has a different flavor from mefi, but still has a conversational, wry, nerdy social media tone. So that is currently the first place I think to go when I have a hot take on a movie.
The main thing I’m missing from Letterboxd though is the feeling of a group of people participating in one conversation together. LB is very much “we are all shouting from different rooftops at different times”. And it is fun to hear what is being shouted! but FF could definitely compel me to be an active user in a way LB doesn’t - if I could actually have a synchronous, back and forth with people on “hot” posts that hover near the top of the feed.
posted by seemoorglass at 8:48 PM on January 5 [4 favorites]
EmpressCallipygos is right. There is no reason one person can't take over posting shows if somebody else stops. I can say that because I've done it. And other people have done it for show discussions I've started. At least in the TV threads, a regular community of posters seems to develop norms for what happens in the threads, and one of those is about who posts and when the posts go up. Sometimes, people even drop notes saying, "I can't put up the thread next week. Will somebody else do it?"
Personally, I get a lot out of FanFare. I've posted a fair number of comments. I've posted threads for individual TV episodes and full seasons of less popular shows. I've posted about some shows that NOBODY watched. I've also got people hooked on other shows that were much enjoyed. I've been a participant in discussions about long-running series that people started off watching because they enjoyed them and wound up watching as the shows turned into trainwrecks.
Personally, I don't find it a problem to write up a description of an episode or a series. A lot of the time, I actually enjoy it. But there are times, I've resorted to the same shortcut that a fair number of posters just use: copying the IMDB description, which is fine, and works well. I don't know what we need to auto-generate descriptions. I mean, I guess if that's the big barrier to entry, it might be worth considering, but honestly, I feel like the people who want to participate will and the people who don't care about FanFare, don't enjoy participating, etc. still won't.
Now, if we could automate the tagging (for example, listing all of the actors in the show), that is something that would make posting easier and quicker, but even that's not a necessity. I suspect that people don't really use the tags when searching for new content to watch (although I'm happy to be corrected in that assumption).
posted by sardonyx at 9:10 PM on January 5 [3 favorites]
Personally, I get a lot out of FanFare. I've posted a fair number of comments. I've posted threads for individual TV episodes and full seasons of less popular shows. I've posted about some shows that NOBODY watched. I've also got people hooked on other shows that were much enjoyed. I've been a participant in discussions about long-running series that people started off watching because they enjoyed them and wound up watching as the shows turned into trainwrecks.
Personally, I don't find it a problem to write up a description of an episode or a series. A lot of the time, I actually enjoy it. But there are times, I've resorted to the same shortcut that a fair number of posters just use: copying the IMDB description, which is fine, and works well. I don't know what we need to auto-generate descriptions. I mean, I guess if that's the big barrier to entry, it might be worth considering, but honestly, I feel like the people who want to participate will and the people who don't care about FanFare, don't enjoy participating, etc. still won't.
Now, if we could automate the tagging (for example, listing all of the actors in the show), that is something that would make posting easier and quicker, but even that's not a necessity. I suspect that people don't really use the tags when searching for new content to watch (although I'm happy to be corrected in that assumption).
posted by sardonyx at 9:10 PM on January 5 [3 favorites]
I use Fanfare a lot, much more than the other parts of MeFi. Usually for TV shows. Any time I watch a show I see if there's a discussion there and I've enjoyed many of the episode-by-episode threads even if they turned into misery-loves-company hate watches (looking at you, For All Mankind!)
Most recently I've been rewatching Severance season 1 due to @simonw's rewatch posts and rewatching Person of Interest due to @miss-lapin's rewatch posts.
I also like to check it daily and dip into discussions of shows I don't watch to see if I might like them, and I enjoy the movie posts too even though I haven't seen 90% of them.
I've been disappointed a lot recently when some shows don't really get much engagement or aren't here at all. I know, I could "be the change" and I should, but TV is relaxing entertainment and I don't always have the time and energy to do that.
posted by mmoncur at 12:12 AM on January 6 [1 favorite]
Most recently I've been rewatching Severance season 1 due to @simonw's rewatch posts and rewatching Person of Interest due to @miss-lapin's rewatch posts.
I also like to check it daily and dip into discussions of shows I don't watch to see if I might like them, and I enjoy the movie posts too even though I haven't seen 90% of them.
I've been disappointed a lot recently when some shows don't really get much engagement or aren't here at all. I know, I could "be the change" and I should, but TV is relaxing entertainment and I don't always have the time and energy to do that.
posted by mmoncur at 12:12 AM on January 6 [1 favorite]
Mod note: [We've added this discussion to the sidebar and Best Of blog, btw!]
posted by taz (staff) at 1:25 AM on January 6 [1 favorite]
posted by taz (staff) at 1:25 AM on January 6 [1 favorite]
Three suggestions for making FanFare more usable:
1. For episodic shows and movies not in theaters, the network airing them or streaming service hosting them should be part of the post creation workflow.
2. Filtering by network or streaming service should be possible. Ditto filtering out streaming services you don't subscribe to.
3. If you're showing posts in reverse chronological order as a rule, you probably don't need to separate posts with date subheads, and that wouldn't be a bad idea for all of MetaFilter.
posted by emelenjr at 4:11 AM on January 6 [3 favorites]
1. For episodic shows and movies not in theaters, the network airing them or streaming service hosting them should be part of the post creation workflow.
2. Filtering by network or streaming service should be possible. Ditto filtering out streaming services you don't subscribe to.
3. If you're showing posts in reverse chronological order as a rule, you probably don't need to separate posts with date subheads, and that wouldn't be a bad idea for all of MetaFilter.
posted by emelenjr at 4:11 AM on January 6 [3 favorites]
For episodic shows and movies not in theaters, the network airing them or streaming service hosting them should be part of the post creation workflow.
This is really tricky to do well because the streaming services differ by country. There isn't just one "Netflix", for instance. It's a different service in each country, and they each have different selections available.
In general each service's own productions will be available to subscribers in all countries, but even that can vary, e.g. if they've licensed some franchise which some other company has exclusive rights to in certain regions.
And each regional service does its own independent licensing deals for third-party content for limited periods, so even if Your Favorite Show is on Netflix US today, it may not be on Netflix UK, and it might not be on either next month. Given how long FanFare threads can exist, that makes this info go stale quickly.
How subscriptions work when travelling also varies between services! For Netflix, subscriptions are treated as global, and when you travel you get shown the local selection for where you are. But Amazon Prime subscriptions are region-specific: if you have a UK Prime account, that doesn't let you use the US version of Prime.
I'm not sure if there's any good third-party site that keeps track of all this so that you can ask "where can I watch X right now in country Y". If there is, we should try to integrate linking to it.
But it isn't really reasonable to ask users to figure all this out when making a post.
posted by automatronic at 5:39 AM on January 6 [9 favorites]
This is really tricky to do well because the streaming services differ by country. There isn't just one "Netflix", for instance. It's a different service in each country, and they each have different selections available.
In general each service's own productions will be available to subscribers in all countries, but even that can vary, e.g. if they've licensed some franchise which some other company has exclusive rights to in certain regions.
And each regional service does its own independent licensing deals for third-party content for limited periods, so even if Your Favorite Show is on Netflix US today, it may not be on Netflix UK, and it might not be on either next month. Given how long FanFare threads can exist, that makes this info go stale quickly.
How subscriptions work when travelling also varies between services! For Netflix, subscriptions are treated as global, and when you travel you get shown the local selection for where you are. But Amazon Prime subscriptions are region-specific: if you have a UK Prime account, that doesn't let you use the US version of Prime.
I'm not sure if there's any good third-party site that keeps track of all this so that you can ask "where can I watch X right now in country Y". If there is, we should try to integrate linking to it.
But it isn't really reasonable to ask users to figure all this out when making a post.
posted by automatronic at 5:39 AM on January 6 [9 favorites]
This is really tricky to do well because the streaming services differ by country. There isn't just one "Netflix", for instance. It's a different service in each country, and they each have different selections available.
JUSTWATCH.COM
This one that is mentioned above. Link to it and people can see what services are showing the thing in their own country, including their country-specific version of Netflix, Disney+ etc. They can even filter them based on which ones they have/do not have.
I'm not sure if there's any good third-party site that keeps track of all this so that you can ask "where can I watch X right now in country Y". If there is, we should try to integrate linking to it.
It would be awesome if we could integrate JustWatch.com but until then, providing that link isn't that hard.
I'll do Citizen Kane right now. Here. That took 9 seconds. so it's not so bad.
posted by DirtyOldTown at 6:27 AM on January 6 [2 favorites]
JUSTWATCH.COM
This one that is mentioned above. Link to it and people can see what services are showing the thing in their own country, including their country-specific version of Netflix, Disney+ etc. They can even filter them based on which ones they have/do not have.
I'm not sure if there's any good third-party site that keeps track of all this so that you can ask "where can I watch X right now in country Y". If there is, we should try to integrate linking to it.
It would be awesome if we could integrate JustWatch.com but until then, providing that link isn't that hard.
I'll do Citizen Kane right now. Here. That took 9 seconds. so it's not so bad.
posted by DirtyOldTown at 6:27 AM on January 6 [2 favorites]
Yeah, that can be a problem as despite best intentions, not every piece of media is going to be accessible to everyone. Which isn't an argument against FanFare at all, it's just reality. I think JustWatch allows you to see what's available in what country? Like, my sister loves horror movies like I do and when I watch one that she might like, I check on there to see where it's available for her in the US.
posted by Kitteh at 6:28 AM on January 6 [1 favorite]
posted by Kitteh at 6:28 AM on January 6 [1 favorite]
I think JustWatch allows you to see what's available in what country?
Any country. Very nearly any country at all.
Here are screenshots of how to choose your country on JustWatch.
You can also integrate JustWatch directly into Letterboxd if you use that service.
posted by DirtyOldTown at 6:33 AM on January 6 [3 favorites]
Any country. Very nearly any country at all.
Here are screenshots of how to choose your country on JustWatch.
You can also integrate JustWatch directly into Letterboxd if you use that service.
posted by DirtyOldTown at 6:33 AM on January 6 [3 favorites]
Torrenting is still possible too ofc.
I made lengthy posts on a few films under my own handle, got very little engagement for the most part, and eventually stopped. My interests are 100 % more niche than they used to be, so I don’t see an easy way in other than the occasional comment.
Audiobook reviews with a few fixed criteria (narration quality, admittedly very subjective, as an example) might be something I would do. And someone else here might actually want to listen to some of those books!
posted by rabia.elizabeth at 6:41 AM on January 6 [1 favorite]
I made lengthy posts on a few films under my own handle, got very little engagement for the most part, and eventually stopped. My interests are 100 % more niche than they used to be, so I don’t see an easy way in other than the occasional comment.
Audiobook reviews with a few fixed criteria (narration quality, admittedly very subjective, as an example) might be something I would do. And someone else here might actually want to listen to some of those books!
posted by rabia.elizabeth at 6:41 AM on January 6 [1 favorite]
Fair point about streaming catalogs not all being the same internationally. But "how I watched what I'm posting about" seems useful to me.
posted by emelenjr at 6:44 AM on January 6 [1 favorite]
posted by emelenjr at 6:44 AM on January 6 [1 favorite]
Torrenting is still possible too ofc.
Okay: I am going to ask a question that is going to make me sound like an idiot.
What is torrenting? I keep seeing people suggest that when I'm looking for something obscure elsewhere, but I don't know what torrenting really entails and they tell me I'm dumb when I ask. Or they give me link and say "torrent it from here" but I go to the site they link to and it's just a list of .... things and I don't know what to do.
So - do you need special software for it? Is it a streaming method? Do you download the thing you're looking for and then open the file? Can someone explain torrenting to me like I'm only five, and let me know how I would do that without giving myself some unholy virus?
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 7:27 AM on January 6 [2 favorites]
Okay: I am going to ask a question that is going to make me sound like an idiot.
What is torrenting? I keep seeing people suggest that when I'm looking for something obscure elsewhere, but I don't know what torrenting really entails and they tell me I'm dumb when I ask. Or they give me link and say "torrent it from here" but I go to the site they link to and it's just a list of .... things and I don't know what to do.
So - do you need special software for it? Is it a streaming method? Do you download the thing you're looking for and then open the file? Can someone explain torrenting to me like I'm only five, and let me know how I would do that without giving myself some unholy virus?
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 7:27 AM on January 6 [2 favorites]
I wish more people who make a FanFare post would very plainly say, "This $WORK was good/bad."
I am more likely to try a new genre or creator, when I don't otherwise have the context already, if someone I trust recommends it.
posted by wenestvedt at 7:43 AM on January 6 [1 favorite]
I am more likely to try a new genre or creator, when I don't otherwise have the context already, if someone I trust recommends it.
posted by wenestvedt at 7:43 AM on January 6 [1 favorite]
What is torrenting?
It's downloading media without paying for it.
BitTorrent is a file-transfer protocol, and may programs can do it. The download comes in a zillion tiny fragments from other users all over the world. There are web sites which offer BitTorrent files, which you then load into your torrenting software, which then finds other people who are offering those fragments.
(Some people prefer to download media via USENET, which can get lumped in with torrenting for simplicity's sake.)
posted by wenestvedt at 7:46 AM on January 6
It's downloading media without paying for it.
BitTorrent is a file-transfer protocol, and may programs can do it. The download comes in a zillion tiny fragments from other users all over the world. There are web sites which offer BitTorrent files, which you then load into your torrenting software, which then finds other people who are offering those fragments.
(Some people prefer to download media via USENET, which can get lumped in with torrenting for simplicity's sake.)
posted by wenestvedt at 7:46 AM on January 6
I'd agree with the general pointlessness of posting on old threads
No, no, posting in old threads is great! For one thing it'll show up in other people's Recent Activity (which site design could probably encourage more people to use), but even better it'll eventually get seen by someone just like you, who's watching something months or years after the initial onrush.
(But I guess in general I think of commenting more as adding a little stone to the pile, and less as seeking out conversation. And mostly I just like looking at the pile of stones other people have left.)
posted by nobody at 8:14 AM on January 6 [13 favorites]
No, no, posting in old threads is great! For one thing it'll show up in other people's Recent Activity (which site design could probably encourage more people to use), but even better it'll eventually get seen by someone just like you, who's watching something months or years after the initial onrush.
(But I guess in general I think of commenting more as adding a little stone to the pile, and less as seeking out conversation. And mostly I just like looking at the pile of stones other people have left.)
posted by nobody at 8:14 AM on January 6 [13 favorites]
It's downloading media without paying for it.
For the record, there are non-piratical uses for peer-to-peer file sharing. But yes, if you see people talking about torrenting, they are almost certainly talking about infringing someone’s copyright.
Empress, you can MeFi Mail me if you have… more detailed questions.
posted by Lemkin at 8:16 AM on January 6 [2 favorites]
For the record, there are non-piratical uses for peer-to-peer file sharing. But yes, if you see people talking about torrenting, they are almost certainly talking about infringing someone’s copyright.
Empress, you can MeFi Mail me if you have… more detailed questions.
posted by Lemkin at 8:16 AM on January 6 [2 favorites]
I would encourage people not to worry much about what will or won't get a response on FF, because:
First, MetaFilter is full of much more specific kinds of nerds than you probably realize and you can post about an old Russian epic, a hard to find Haida language folk horror film, or a lurid 80's exploitation thriller and people may indeed materialize to chat with you. The thing to keep in mind is that your reasons for watching something may be less unusual than you think. Someone else may have also bought that weird boxed set, or noticed something popped up on Tubi, or thought of an old film again when one of its stars made the news.
Second, unless you're discussing the #1 film at the box office or the most popular show on streaming, FF tends to be a delayed gratification place. You may comment on Aliens when you rewatch it and no one replies for six months, but they may reply specifically to you and have cool things to say! Delayed gratification may not sound ideal, but honestly, compared to Letterboxd, where the default is "throw your review into the void, never to be seen again" delayed gratification is pretty cool.
Third, be the FF you want to see. Drop comments on as many things as you watch as you can and when people pop back up in those threads, then the conversation can start. Granted, you may not be the type to watch ten movies a week (what kind of a weirdo, amirite) but some of these little breadcrumbs you leave around will nevertheless draw in people for fun conversations later.
posted by DirtyOldTown at 8:25 AM on January 6 [15 favorites]
First, MetaFilter is full of much more specific kinds of nerds than you probably realize and you can post about an old Russian epic, a hard to find Haida language folk horror film, or a lurid 80's exploitation thriller and people may indeed materialize to chat with you. The thing to keep in mind is that your reasons for watching something may be less unusual than you think. Someone else may have also bought that weird boxed set, or noticed something popped up on Tubi, or thought of an old film again when one of its stars made the news.
Second, unless you're discussing the #1 film at the box office or the most popular show on streaming, FF tends to be a delayed gratification place. You may comment on Aliens when you rewatch it and no one replies for six months, but they may reply specifically to you and have cool things to say! Delayed gratification may not sound ideal, but honestly, compared to Letterboxd, where the default is "throw your review into the void, never to be seen again" delayed gratification is pretty cool.
Third, be the FF you want to see. Drop comments on as many things as you watch as you can and when people pop back up in those threads, then the conversation can start. Granted, you may not be the type to watch ten movies a week (what kind of a weirdo, amirite) but some of these little breadcrumbs you leave around will nevertheless draw in people for fun conversations later.
posted by DirtyOldTown at 8:25 AM on January 6 [15 favorites]
I occasionally post old books or movies to Fanfare; I usually get a few comments, sometimes an insightful one, or even just learn a nice bit of trivia. It's pleasant, but it's definitely not a conversation. Unconnected opinions:
Switching Fanfare to "most recent comments" or DoT's "bump" function would help some.
I'm doubtful about cross-posting to the blue. The rhythm of FPPs is to get a lot of comments in the first day, and that's what you'll get: But it'll be people jumping in without having seen the movie or read the book, commenting on some aspect they do know. This would bury the part of fanfare that is working.
I love the idea of clubs people occasionally get going, but I don't feel we have the number of active users to sustain them. There are a lot of approaches that would work after we got a lot more traffic, I guess.
I wonder if someone could write a weekly digest of perhaps the top five things being discussed and send it via MeMail?
I wish more people who make a FanFare post would very plainly say, "This $WORK was good/bad."
My preference would be that everyone do this, but in a comment immediately after posting, rather than the post itself. I feel like the main post is a privileged spot, since we only get one post per work.
Alternatively, maybe just let people start a new threads on movies and books. So if someone catches up on Knives Out and wants to talk about it they start a new thread as subjective as they want ("Rian Johnson's worst movie?") and people can chime in. That might help with the "discussion" vibes; right now if someone posted new thoughts, I might see it on my recent activity but I'm less like to respond, if I've already shared my thoughts upthread. Would need to change the interface to group the threads under the specific work, so you see them all when you search.
posted by mark k at 8:36 AM on January 6 [2 favorites]
Switching Fanfare to "most recent comments" or DoT's "bump" function would help some.
I'm doubtful about cross-posting to the blue. The rhythm of FPPs is to get a lot of comments in the first day, and that's what you'll get: But it'll be people jumping in without having seen the movie or read the book, commenting on some aspect they do know. This would bury the part of fanfare that is working.
I love the idea of clubs people occasionally get going, but I don't feel we have the number of active users to sustain them. There are a lot of approaches that would work after we got a lot more traffic, I guess.
I wonder if someone could write a weekly digest of perhaps the top five things being discussed and send it via MeMail?
I wish more people who make a FanFare post would very plainly say, "This $WORK was good/bad."
My preference would be that everyone do this, but in a comment immediately after posting, rather than the post itself. I feel like the main post is a privileged spot, since we only get one post per work.
Alternatively, maybe just let people start a new threads on movies and books. So if someone catches up on Knives Out and wants to talk about it they start a new thread as subjective as they want ("Rian Johnson's worst movie?") and people can chime in. That might help with the "discussion" vibes; right now if someone posted new thoughts, I might see it on my recent activity but I'm less like to respond, if I've already shared my thoughts upthread. Would need to change the interface to group the threads under the specific work, so you see them all when you search.
posted by mark k at 8:36 AM on January 6 [2 favorites]
I've been thinking about the "bump" thing and I think I have a very low effort way to implement this.
Could we perhaps have something where a person could, when making a FF post, choose a category called "Bump." This would require a link to an existing thread, which would then appear at the bottom, but there would be no comments allowed, instead routing people to the existing thread.
It would look like this:
Movie: Anora (re-post)
Anora received seven Oscar nominations today, including Best Picture, Best Director, and Best Actress.
[imagine small font here] posted by DirtyOldTown at 8:48 AM - Original post [/imagine small font here]
Anora would then go back to the top of the FF page for another turn, so that people could discuss it again.
posted by DirtyOldTown at 9:08 AM on January 6 [1 favorite]
Could we perhaps have something where a person could, when making a FF post, choose a category called "Bump." This would require a link to an existing thread, which would then appear at the bottom, but there would be no comments allowed, instead routing people to the existing thread.
It would look like this:
Movie: Anora (re-post)
Anora received seven Oscar nominations today, including Best Picture, Best Director, and Best Actress.
[imagine small font here] posted by DirtyOldTown at 8:48 AM - Original post [/imagine small font here]
Anora would then go back to the top of the FF page for another turn, so that people could discuss it again.
posted by DirtyOldTown at 9:08 AM on January 6 [1 favorite]
Just wanted to add this to the discussion as another posting issue.
posted by jenfullmoon at 9:43 AM on January 6 [3 favorites]
posted by jenfullmoon at 9:43 AM on January 6 [3 favorites]
I really like FanFare, and once the new site code is open-sourced I'm keen to try out some experiments with improving it. I would really like to see a "most recently commented on" view, and then a "most recently commented on in and also in My FanFare" view, which I think would address some of the concerns about commenting about a show that aired 2 years ago and is way off the front page. I imagine it would be relatively easy to add these as alternate views without modifying the existing behavior at all, so it should be possible to play around with stuff without disturbing the existing site too much.
posted by whir at 9:50 AM on January 6 [1 favorite]
posted by whir at 9:50 AM on January 6 [1 favorite]
Okay: I am going to ask a question that is going to make me sound like an idiot.
I honestly wished more of us asked more questions. There are gaps for everyone, and one person's easy-peasy is another person's uncharted territory, and that's life nowadays
I appreciate people who ask questions
posted by ginger.beef at 10:11 AM on January 6 [8 favorites]
I honestly wished more of us asked more questions. There are gaps for everyone, and one person's easy-peasy is another person's uncharted territory, and that's life nowadays
I appreciate people who ask questions
posted by ginger.beef at 10:11 AM on January 6 [8 favorites]
One other thing: because it is quieter on Fanfare, I think it's very good to be generous with favoriting comments and posts. even if you don't have something to say, you can let me people know you appreciate what they contributed.
posted by DirtyOldTown at 10:12 AM on January 6 [11 favorites]
posted by DirtyOldTown at 10:12 AM on January 6 [11 favorites]
I still think it would be fun to have FF posts break out to the front page of the blue
it's like there's MeFi site culture and all the subcultures of people who post heavily in e.g. Ask, Fan, Projects, etc. Once something reaches a level of traffic it's like a science experiment gone right/wrong, wreaking havoc on the blue
posted by ginger.beef at 10:14 AM on January 6 [1 favorite]
it's like there's MeFi site culture and all the subcultures of people who post heavily in e.g. Ask, Fan, Projects, etc. Once something reaches a level of traffic it's like a science experiment gone right/wrong, wreaking havoc on the blue
posted by ginger.beef at 10:14 AM on January 6 [1 favorite]
No, no, posting in old threads is great!
agreed
so much of our lives is based on an idea of instant gratification and this plays out in most social media platforms every moment of every day. Life is a stream of scrolling.
posting in old threads is a message in a bottle set adrift on the seas. stick around, you never know
posted by ginger.beef at 10:24 AM on January 6 [11 favorites]
agreed
so much of our lives is based on an idea of instant gratification and this plays out in most social media platforms every moment of every day. Life is a stream of scrolling.
posting in old threads is a message in a bottle set adrift on the seas. stick around, you never know
posted by ginger.beef at 10:24 AM on January 6 [11 favorites]
I still think it would be fun to have FF posts break out to the front page of the blue
FWIW, items from the Projects sub-site can be re-posted to the Blue. (Though I would prefer maybe to see an addition to the Sidebar, instead.)
--
I rarely see movies, shows, or books when they're new -- and I am often surprised by the amount of ongoing traffic some FanFare posts get long after the subject isn't fresh. The thread for the 2023 movie Barbie is a great example: comments started strong and carried for six or seven months!
posted by wenestvedt at 10:25 AM on January 6 [1 favorite]
FWIW, items from the Projects sub-site can be re-posted to the Blue. (Though I would prefer maybe to see an addition to the Sidebar, instead.)
--
I rarely see movies, shows, or books when they're new -- and I am often surprised by the amount of ongoing traffic some FanFare posts get long after the subject isn't fresh. The thread for the 2023 movie Barbie is a great example: comments started strong and carried for six or seven months!
posted by wenestvedt at 10:25 AM on January 6 [1 favorite]
I made lengthy posts on a few films under my own handle, got very little engagement for the most part, and eventually stopped.
What has kept me going past that point is some kind of collector/completionist/wiki desire for FF to have Every Movie. Which is impossible and pointless, but that's how such desires go.
posted by fleacircus at 10:37 AM on January 6 [5 favorites]
What has kept me going past that point is some kind of collector/completionist/wiki desire for FF to have Every Movie. Which is impossible and pointless, but that's how such desires go.
posted by fleacircus at 10:37 AM on January 6 [5 favorites]
Mod note: Maybe we could do occasional (weekly? monthly?) FPP's that recap the new posts on FF.
Would that be permissible/acceptable, mods?
Yeah, go for it in whatever time duration you think works. Thanks for having this idea!
posted by Brandon Blatcher (staff) at 11:02 AM on January 6 [3 favorites]
Would that be permissible/acceptable, mods?
Yeah, go for it in whatever time duration you think works. Thanks for having this idea!
posted by Brandon Blatcher (staff) at 11:02 AM on January 6 [3 favorites]
Dipping back in after reading the above - I like the idea of the bump function, and since you're a power user DOT, I trust your instinct.
What would be great about defaulting to Most Recent Comments (or Activity Posts), is that these already exist in Recent Comments and Watercooler. Can we just [lol, coding happens] make the default landing page a side-by-side view of Recent Comments and Most Activity, and give it a title of Recent Activity? I even did a wireframe at one point for myself. I'll see if I can dig it up.
I also have commented in old posts and consider it a message from the future, or to the past, or to someone else in the future. Do it.
Regarding clout, it's not clout per se, but a lot of us are film-buffy and interested in weird stuff, so the bizarre, the niche, the taboo, and the little-seen show up more than average here. Which can come off as clout.
posted by cocoagirl at 11:38 AM on January 6 [1 favorite]
What would be great about defaulting to Most Recent Comments (or Activity Posts), is that these already exist in Recent Comments and Watercooler. Can we just [lol, coding happens] make the default landing page a side-by-side view of Recent Comments and Most Activity, and give it a title of Recent Activity? I even did a wireframe at one point for myself. I'll see if I can dig it up.
I also have commented in old posts and consider it a message from the future, or to the past, or to someone else in the future. Do it.
Regarding clout, it's not clout per se, but a lot of us are film-buffy and interested in weird stuff, so the bizarre, the niche, the taboo, and the little-seen show up more than average here. Which can come off as clout.
posted by cocoagirl at 11:38 AM on January 6 [1 favorite]
Re: audiobooks and old threads
I posted a comment on an older post for a book (post was Oct 2020, my comment was June 2024) about what I liked and got a reply with a great recommendation for a book with a similar theme.
I read so many books that are just episodic, cozy fiction and not always worthy of their own posts, but maybe a series post would make sense. Please post more fiction books and I will try to do the same.
posted by soelo at 11:41 AM on January 6 [2 favorites]
I posted a comment on an older post for a book (post was Oct 2020, my comment was June 2024) about what I liked and got a reply with a great recommendation for a book with a similar theme.
I read so many books that are just episodic, cozy fiction and not always worthy of their own posts, but maybe a series post would make sense. Please post more fiction books and I will try to do the same.
posted by soelo at 11:41 AM on January 6 [2 favorites]
Wow, that was fast.
posted by cocoagirl at 11:41 AM on January 6 [1 favorite]
posted by cocoagirl at 11:41 AM on January 6 [1 favorite]
what is this FanFare clout I keep hearing of
posted by ginger.beef at 11:44 AM on January 6 [3 favorites]
posted by ginger.beef at 11:44 AM on January 6 [3 favorites]
Fanfare suffered because a handful of individual users had very strong visions of what Fanfare was “supposed” and strenuously objected every time anyone suggested the slightest change that might threaten their particular vision. With the current backlog of more pressing technical changes to the site, it’s now effectively impossible to make any such changes anyway.
In an eventual future with interest and available developer capacity, I hope we can discuss adding comics again without it being shot down for being “too much” content (even though most comics publish on a monthly or even semi-monthly basis, far less frequently than your average network tv show)
posted by Why Is The World In Love Again? at 12:04 PM on January 6 [2 favorites]
In an eventual future with interest and available developer capacity, I hope we can discuss adding comics again without it being shot down for being “too much” content (even though most comics publish on a monthly or even semi-monthly basis, far less frequently than your average network tv show)
posted by Why Is The World In Love Again? at 12:04 PM on January 6 [2 favorites]
Now I want do a new MetaTalk post about clout.
Who’s got it, how did they get it, and how do I grab some?
posted by Lemkin at 12:35 PM on January 6 [4 favorites]
Who’s got it, how did they get it, and how do I grab some?
posted by Lemkin at 12:35 PM on January 6 [4 favorites]
I can assure anyone who is wondering... knowing a lot about obscure cinema (or worse - having an opinion on it) is not a way to win friends or get you invites to parties (speaking from experience). So any kind of notion of "clout" for posts is hilarious.
Regarding Fanfare, I think there's been some good suggestions above (particularly the bumping suggestion). I'd encourage integrations with Justwatch, IMDB, Letterboxd, maybe TMDB and perhaps auto generating tagging in the workflow of posts to help streamline that. I'd love to see some connection between an Askme movie suggestion or Blue post, as DoT calls them "stub" posts, but I recognise that might be hard to implement.
I don't watch much TV or sporting events so I can't comment on how those are run or function but I do spend time with the movie posts. I think overall they move at a much slower rate so I do think it is worth commenting on old posts in order to revive old conversations whenever you get around to watching something. I think it is worth expressing a stronger opinion, though I recognise that can be a bit much for some people when there are so few of us, and could quiet some commenters if it is the reverse of their opinions (the "yucking others yum" that happens so frequently on the Blue). I like to take the piss out of films I watch but I know sometimes that isn't well received. But I do feel it does open the conversation a bit if we are not all on the same page.
From my point of view, as there are so few of us at times, I think the conversations can be pretty thin so when I contribute I usually try to add a bit more to the post (if I have time) to help fill that out. I don't know how successful those contributions are but I do think they add more to the post for posterity.
posted by Ashwagandha at 1:01 PM on January 6 [7 favorites]
Regarding Fanfare, I think there's been some good suggestions above (particularly the bumping suggestion). I'd encourage integrations with Justwatch, IMDB, Letterboxd, maybe TMDB and perhaps auto generating tagging in the workflow of posts to help streamline that. I'd love to see some connection between an Askme movie suggestion or Blue post, as DoT calls them "stub" posts, but I recognise that might be hard to implement.
I don't watch much TV or sporting events so I can't comment on how those are run or function but I do spend time with the movie posts. I think overall they move at a much slower rate so I do think it is worth commenting on old posts in order to revive old conversations whenever you get around to watching something. I think it is worth expressing a stronger opinion, though I recognise that can be a bit much for some people when there are so few of us, and could quiet some commenters if it is the reverse of their opinions (the "yucking others yum" that happens so frequently on the Blue). I like to take the piss out of films I watch but I know sometimes that isn't well received. But I do feel it does open the conversation a bit if we are not all on the same page.
From my point of view, as there are so few of us at times, I think the conversations can be pretty thin so when I contribute I usually try to add a bit more to the post (if I have time) to help fill that out. I don't know how successful those contributions are but I do think they add more to the post for posterity.
posted by Ashwagandha at 1:01 PM on January 6 [7 favorites]
FanFare's a complicated design question so I hope there's not a "take what people ask for and just do that" approach but a real think about it and a look at sites in line with it. For example, if you had genre tags as well as media tags people could filter a view like 'superhero' and get both Marvel movies and Walschot's Hench and I think really cool conversations would flow in part because of Metafilter's endearing habit of bringing discussers' past conversations into current ones.
But that all requires some pretty solid planning and expertise. Still, it would be so awesome.
posted by warriorqueen at 1:04 PM on January 6 [3 favorites]
But that all requires some pretty solid planning and expertise. Still, it would be so awesome.
posted by warriorqueen at 1:04 PM on January 6 [3 favorites]
I don't watch much TV or sporting events so I can't comment on how those are run or function
Exhibit A
I'd also point to The Pluto Gangsta's repeated AEW wrestling posts, but there's lots more in the purple and it's very hit and miss
posted by ginger.beef at 1:09 PM on January 6
Exhibit A
I'd also point to The Pluto Gangsta's repeated AEW wrestling posts, but there's lots more in the purple and it's very hit and miss
posted by ginger.beef at 1:09 PM on January 6
Okay, I made an FPP post about the last week or so in FanFare.
posted by DirtyOldTown at 1:47 PM on January 6 [7 favorites]
posted by DirtyOldTown at 1:47 PM on January 6 [7 favorites]
Repeating what I said in DOT's FPP:
Boy oh boy, I love it, DOT! I really think that weekly FPP's about FF will help drive more conversation over there. Seeing it like this really shows that there's a slew of interesting media.
For those who don't like acronyms:
DOT=DirtyOldTown
FPP=Front Page Post
FF=FanFare
posted by ashbury at 1:56 PM on January 6
Boy oh boy, I love it, DOT! I really think that weekly FPP's about FF will help drive more conversation over there. Seeing it like this really shows that there's a slew of interesting media.
For those who don't like acronyms:
DOT=DirtyOldTown
FPP=Front Page Post
FF=FanFare
posted by ashbury at 1:56 PM on January 6
Regarding clout, it's not clout per se, but a lot of us are film-buffy and interested in weird stuff, so the bizarre, the niche, the taboo, and the little-seen show up more than average here. Which can come off as clout.
I think that's a really uncharitable read. My experience of FF is people go to the trouble of making a post because they genuinely want to talk about a work that they think is at least interesting (and sadly are often disappointed there) and/or to boost the awareness of works that may have been forgotten or overlooked. I've learned about so many books, movies, tv shows that I have fallen in love with via FF posts.
Also I've been judged enough for my taste. People with different tastes posting is a feature not a bug, and we need embrace that.
posted by miss-lapin at 2:03 PM on January 6 [7 favorites]
I think that's a really uncharitable read. My experience of FF is people go to the trouble of making a post because they genuinely want to talk about a work that they think is at least interesting (and sadly are often disappointed there) and/or to boost the awareness of works that may have been forgotten or overlooked. I've learned about so many books, movies, tv shows that I have fallen in love with via FF posts.
Also I've been judged enough for my taste. People with different tastes posting is a feature not a bug, and we need embrace that.
posted by miss-lapin at 2:03 PM on January 6 [7 favorites]
“I wish more people who make a FanFare post would very plainly say, "This $WORK was good/bad."
But it’s FAN fare so we’re not supposed to say anything was bad, according to a mod.
posted by Ideefixe at 2:11 PM on January 6
But it’s FAN fare so we’re not supposed to say anything was bad, according to a mod.
posted by Ideefixe at 2:11 PM on January 6
I tried hard to give a magnanimous reply to you above, Ideefixe, but if you want to keep at it, I can speak more plainly to make it harder for you to miss.
It is absolutely 100% allowed, even encouraged to share a negative opinion of something in a FanFare post. We know this is true because people do it all the time.
Then why were you deleted?
There is participating in a discussion with a dissenting view and there is threadshitting and you are most assuredly a miserable inveterate threadshitter. You don't stop in to discuss your opinion, good or bad, you seek out threads you don't think are worthy, pop in to drop a rotten-assed pronouncement that the thing isn't worth discussing and then fucking skate.
You complain about the quality of the stuff posted on Fanfare but have literally never ever made a single post.
What you have done is make 123 comments, more than half of which by my count are single serving threadshits.
There is no reason at all for anyone to take my word for it, though, as your profile is clickable and your activity is right there.
Some of the things you have commented over time that are not threadshits are fairly interesting. I wonder sometimes what your contributions could be like if you could just fucking stop with the verbal turds.
Real sorry if you think so many posts are for things that are beneath you and not worth discussing, but have you considered that you do not then actually have to discuss them?
posted by DirtyOldTown at 2:29 PM on January 6 [16 favorites]
It is absolutely 100% allowed, even encouraged to share a negative opinion of something in a FanFare post. We know this is true because people do it all the time.
Then why were you deleted?
There is participating in a discussion with a dissenting view and there is threadshitting and you are most assuredly a miserable inveterate threadshitter. You don't stop in to discuss your opinion, good or bad, you seek out threads you don't think are worthy, pop in to drop a rotten-assed pronouncement that the thing isn't worth discussing and then fucking skate.
You complain about the quality of the stuff posted on Fanfare but have literally never ever made a single post.
What you have done is make 123 comments, more than half of which by my count are single serving threadshits.
There is no reason at all for anyone to take my word for it, though, as your profile is clickable and your activity is right there.
Some of the things you have commented over time that are not threadshits are fairly interesting. I wonder sometimes what your contributions could be like if you could just fucking stop with the verbal turds.
Real sorry if you think so many posts are for things that are beneath you and not worth discussing, but have you considered that you do not then actually have to discuss them?
posted by DirtyOldTown at 2:29 PM on January 6 [16 favorites]
would you quit beating around the bush and just speak your mind for once DOT
posted by ginger.beef at 2:33 PM on January 6 [8 favorites]
posted by ginger.beef at 2:33 PM on January 6 [8 favorites]
not to pick on you Ideefixe but the first comment of yours I read in this thread was largely contradicted by half the posts I've read recently in FF
it's like we're in different versions of MeFi
posted by ginger.beef at 2:34 PM on January 6 [5 favorites]
it's like we're in different versions of MeFi
posted by ginger.beef at 2:34 PM on January 6 [5 favorites]
Ideefixe I've said it before and I'll say it again, since your main criticism (and most of your comments) are about how everything the rest of us post on FF isn't your taste maybe, and I'm just spitballing here, you should post the things you find worthy since nothing any of us has is up to your stringent standards.
posted by miss-lapin at 2:36 PM on January 6 [5 favorites]
posted by miss-lapin at 2:36 PM on January 6 [5 favorites]
I've made a concerted effort to engage with posting what I've been watching or rewatching on Fanfare, and honestly it's been great. I think the important point is that I'm doing it because I enjoy creating a post, reading a number of critics reviews, and finding ones that I agree with, make good points, or really disagree with. While I certainly appreciate the posts that generate better conversations, even the ones where I'm the only commenter I still got to go through that process. Hopefully others can see it and find it useful, even if the film itself isn't a banger.
posted by Carillon at 2:40 PM on January 6 [6 favorites]
posted by Carillon at 2:40 PM on January 6 [6 favorites]
as an inveterate hater, i think a lot of the conflict here is due to how inactive fanfare is, and not due to anything anyone is necessarily doing wrong.
which is to say--i think the perception that there are too many low-effort "i watched this on netflix while i did dishes, it was ok" posts and the perception that there are too many "this sucks" one-liners would probably both be alleviated with more people participating.
posted by Why Is The World In Love Again? at 2:56 PM on January 6 [1 favorite]
which is to say--i think the perception that there are too many low-effort "i watched this on netflix while i did dishes, it was ok" posts and the perception that there are too many "this sucks" one-liners would probably both be alleviated with more people participating.
posted by Why Is The World In Love Again? at 2:56 PM on January 6 [1 favorite]
I would agree with you if someone wasn't repeatedly criticizing both on FF and here that those of us who post in FF as clout chasers.
posted by miss-lapin at 2:59 PM on January 6 [5 favorites]
posted by miss-lapin at 2:59 PM on January 6 [5 favorites]
The idea of people posting on FanFare for clout is the funniest joke I've seen on MeFi in years.
posted by automatronic at 3:16 PM on January 6 [19 favorites]
posted by automatronic at 3:16 PM on January 6 [19 favorites]
as an inveterate hater, i think a lot of the conflict here is due to how inactive fanfare is, and not due to anything anyone is necessarily doing wrong.
which is to say--i think the perception that there are too many low-effort "i watched this on netflix while i did dishes, it was ok" posts and the perception that there are too many "this sucks" one-liners would probably both be alleviated with more people participating.
This isn't an accurate description of either side of this argument. It's not even close, really.
posted by DirtyOldTown at 3:16 PM on January 6 [5 favorites]
which is to say--i think the perception that there are too many low-effort "i watched this on netflix while i did dishes, it was ok" posts and the perception that there are too many "this sucks" one-liners would probably both be alleviated with more people participating.
This isn't an accurate description of either side of this argument. It's not even close, really.
posted by DirtyOldTown at 3:16 PM on January 6 [5 favorites]
I'm reasonably sure I am the most prolific poster on FF, at least as far as movies go and I've said maybe 17 times that Do Not Expect Too Much from the End of the World gets my vote for the best movie of last year and at this point, I believe I have convinced exactly zero people to watch this film.
If someone figures out how FF clout works, please advise.
posted by DirtyOldTown at 3:20 PM on January 6 [15 favorites]
If someone figures out how FF clout works, please advise.
posted by DirtyOldTown at 3:20 PM on January 6 [15 favorites]
Hell I'd settle for it covering just my prime subscription or a free coffee now and then.
posted by miss-lapin at 3:23 PM on January 6 [3 favorites]
posted by miss-lapin at 3:23 PM on January 6 [3 favorites]
Honestly, being told I'm posting on FF to get clout is something like being told I stand at the train tracks watching trains to win friends and influence people.
No bro, I'm fucking autistic. This is transparently fucking uncool. WTF.
posted by DirtyOldTown at 3:24 PM on January 6 [14 favorites]
No bro, I'm fucking autistic. This is transparently fucking uncool. WTF.
posted by DirtyOldTown at 3:24 PM on January 6 [14 favorites]
This isn't an accurate description of either side of this argument. It's not even close, really.
all right have fun buddy
posted by Why Is The World In Love Again? at 3:25 PM on January 6 [1 favorite]
all right have fun buddy
posted by Why Is The World In Love Again? at 3:25 PM on January 6 [1 favorite]
it makes more sense to lick public urinals to improve one's resistance to the common flu
and that does not make sense
posted by ginger.beef at 3:26 PM on January 6 [1 favorite]
and that does not make sense
posted by ginger.beef at 3:26 PM on January 6 [1 favorite]
ideefixe's posting history in FanFare is awful, but sparking this hilarious 20-comment clout thing with just a throwaway comment definitely redeems them
posted by Klipspringer at 3:29 PM on January 6 [6 favorites]
posted by Klipspringer at 3:29 PM on January 6 [6 favorites]
ideefixe's posting history in FanFare is awful, but sparking this hilarious 20-comment clout thing with just a throwaway comment definitely redeems them
Thanks for reminding why I don't come to MeTa anymore or think posting here will actually address a problem.
posted by miss-lapin at 3:33 PM on January 6 [2 favorites]
Thanks for reminding why I don't come to MeTa anymore or think posting here will actually address a problem.
posted by miss-lapin at 3:33 PM on January 6 [2 favorites]
I’m not even joking, if I didn’t have to wait 3 more days for another MeTa post request, I’d have submitted one to have the clout discussion.
If any of you want to forge ahead, go for it.
posted by Lemkin at 3:40 PM on January 6
If any of you want to forge ahead, go for it.
posted by Lemkin at 3:40 PM on January 6
the whole "clout" derail was introduced and perpetrated solely by people arguing against it so i don't know what the point of such a post would be.
posted by Why Is The World In Love Again? at 3:52 PM on January 6
posted by Why Is The World In Love Again? at 3:52 PM on January 6
The clout derail was introduced by Ideefixe who is not arguing against it. I suspect the point of such a post would be to make it absolutely clear how absurd the idea since it seems unclear to some.
posted by miss-lapin at 3:58 PM on January 6 [3 favorites]
posted by miss-lapin at 3:58 PM on January 6 [3 favorites]
OK, this thread is officially getting weird. Who posts to FF for clout? Aren't we having this thread because of the feeling that FF is underutilized? When I see an obscure film from another country or another time posted, I figured it's because someone watched it and found it interesting enough to try and discuss, and put it up because they hope others would also have seen it and want to talk. In some ways, FF feels like a bunch of lonely islands wreathed in fog, setting off their horns not to warn away errant ships but lure like-minded mariners to drop by for a cup of tea and a chat. It doesn't work all that well, but it's worth doing.
As for being relentlessly positive, I often post comments in FF (often for how rarely a comment in FF) where I tediously list what I liked and didn't like about an item. No one has deleted me, to the best of my memory.
posted by GenjiandProust at 4:00 PM on January 6 [5 favorites]
As for being relentlessly positive, I often post comments in FF (often for how rarely a comment in FF) where I tediously list what I liked and didn't like about an item. No one has deleted me, to the best of my memory.
posted by GenjiandProust at 4:00 PM on January 6 [5 favorites]
I believe I have convinced exactly zero people to watch this film
I will give it a watch! We should do a FF top 10 movies/shows/etc. post at the end of the year where anyone who wants to can comment their top 10 and why they think they're the best.
posted by cocoagirl at 4:01 PM on January 6 [5 favorites]
I will give it a watch! We should do a FF top 10 movies/shows/etc. post at the end of the year where anyone who wants to can comment their top 10 and why they think they're the best.
posted by cocoagirl at 4:01 PM on January 6 [5 favorites]
I'd add those of us reacting badly to clout accusation are doing so because we're tired of hearing that we make posts in FF for clout from a single user who has never posted there but enjoys briefly coming on to those posts to bitch about how unworthy what we've posted about is.
posted by miss-lapin at 4:02 PM on January 6 [5 favorites]
posted by miss-lapin at 4:02 PM on January 6 [5 favorites]
I've leveled a lot of criticisms against movies in FF but the one thing I've never said is it doesn't deserve to be posted there. If one thinks a work doesn't deserve any acknowledgement, explaining that viewpoint is a reasonable expectation.
posted by miss-lapin at 4:04 PM on January 6 [3 favorites]
posted by miss-lapin at 4:04 PM on January 6 [3 favorites]
Okay I just got Idefix's name from Asterix. I am 47.
Anyway, prompted by DOT's excellent post, I jumped into the Juror #2 discussion to say that I did not enjoy that film, before reading the back-and-forth here on negative drive-bys. I'll think more carefully about that in the future; I wasn't aware of Taz's suggestion that we might consider skipping commenting on things we didn't enjoy. (I don't think my comment was terribly egregious; it's still worth considering whether it's contributing.)
posted by neuromodulator at 4:11 PM on January 6
Anyway, prompted by DOT's excellent post, I jumped into the Juror #2 discussion to say that I did not enjoy that film, before reading the back-and-forth here on negative drive-bys. I'll think more carefully about that in the future; I wasn't aware of Taz's suggestion that we might consider skipping commenting on things we didn't enjoy. (I don't think my comment was terribly egregious; it's still worth considering whether it's contributing.)
posted by neuromodulator at 4:11 PM on January 6
The clout derail was introduced by Ideefixe who is not arguing against it. I suspect the point of such a post would be to make it absolutely clear how absurd the idea since it seems unclear to some
I’m new enough to the current era of the site to be willing to give the matter as open a hearing as gray participation levels will allow. I certainly think of Rhaomi as a MeFi elite of sorts. I don’t know how that would translate into “clout” exactly. But criticism from them would certainly sting more than that from some yobbo.
posted by Lemkin at 4:16 PM on January 6
I’m new enough to the current era of the site to be willing to give the matter as open a hearing as gray participation levels will allow. I certainly think of Rhaomi as a MeFi elite of sorts. I don’t know how that would translate into “clout” exactly. But criticism from them would certainly sting more than that from some yobbo.
posted by Lemkin at 4:16 PM on January 6
miss-lapin, my comment is in agreement with you. I mean we can be a weird bunch on FF and when I think "Who will be open to a conversation with me comparing The Substance to Carrie? Who might be interested in this tv show Patriot and why it's criminally under-seen" I turn to FF (or at least, not toward the people in my life who aren't so into movies and tv) precisely because "people go to the trouble of making a post because they genuinely want to talk about a work that they think is at least interesting (and sadly are often disappointed there) and/or to boost the awareness of works that may have been forgotten or overlooked".
posted by cocoagirl at 4:19 PM on January 6 [1 favorite]
posted by cocoagirl at 4:19 PM on January 6 [1 favorite]
I will say I had a blast posting and "recapping" the last season of Evil on FanFare. I did it mostly because the first three seasons were so poorly received (I did not post those) and by the time Shepherd and I watched it, I had become enamoured of just how batshit it was. It was just a fun underrated show.
posted by Kitteh at 4:26 PM on January 6 [6 favorites]
posted by Kitteh at 4:26 PM on January 6 [6 favorites]
Kitteh-I love your Evil posts. I am still sad that show ended, but I had fun talking about that last season!
posted by miss-lapin at 4:32 PM on January 6 [4 favorites]
posted by miss-lapin at 4:32 PM on January 6 [4 favorites]
I jumped into the Juror #2 discussion to say that I did not enjoy that film, before reading the back-and-forth here on negative drive-bys. I'll think more carefully about that in the future
Expressing negative opinions on FF is TOTALLY AND COMPLETELY FINE.
Expressing negative opinions on FF is GOOD ACTUALLY.
Expressing negative opinions on FF is NEEDED SO THAT YOUR FELLOW MEFITES CAN SEE WHAT PEOPLE THINK..
The question to ask yourself is: am I speaking, as I would to friends, explaining my opinion which may simply be different than theirs, might even be very negative or even snarky? Then you are doing A GOOD JOB. Or do you sound like you're trying to shut people up or spoil their fun?
posted by DirtyOldTown at 4:38 PM on January 6 [11 favorites]
Expressing negative opinions on FF is TOTALLY AND COMPLETELY FINE.
Expressing negative opinions on FF is GOOD ACTUALLY.
Expressing negative opinions on FF is NEEDED SO THAT YOUR FELLOW MEFITES CAN SEE WHAT PEOPLE THINK..
The question to ask yourself is: am I speaking, as I would to friends, explaining my opinion which may simply be different than theirs, might even be very negative or even snarky? Then you are doing A GOOD JOB. Or do you sound like you're trying to shut people up or spoil their fun?
posted by DirtyOldTown at 4:38 PM on January 6 [11 favorites]
TL;DR: in this era of low FF participation, please do not misinterpret "do not threadshit" as a new rule meaning "only comment on things you like."
There is no new rule. It's the very oldest rule: "Don't be an asshole."
There are lots of ways to say you don't like something that do not include being an asshole.
posted by DirtyOldTown at 4:44 PM on January 6 [17 favorites]
There is no new rule. It's the very oldest rule: "Don't be an asshole."
There are lots of ways to say you don't like something that do not include being an asshole.
posted by DirtyOldTown at 4:44 PM on January 6 [17 favorites]
The thing about clout is that underneath it all ideefixe genuinely thinks that posting a lot leads to having a lot of sway within a community. But DirtyOldTown's posts and comments are typically positive or at least thoughtful about what went wrong, whereas ideefixe's tend to be mean, snarky, and condescending. DirtyOldTown is mostly saying "here's this thing I watched which I thought was cool, or at least an interesting failure," and ideefixe is mostly saying "your taste sucks [and mine of course is better] [sneer]," and then ideefixe keeps getting stuck trying to understand why one of those efforts gets appreciated while the other doesn't. He's jealous, and won't allow himself to see that the core issue isn't where (or how many times) you click "Post."
posted by johnofjack at 4:48 PM on January 6 [12 favorites]
posted by johnofjack at 4:48 PM on January 6 [12 favorites]
clout. save me
gathering links, was going to do a front page post but I realized that would be like using the ladder to get on stilts.
posted by clavdivs at 4:56 PM on January 6 [2 favorites]
gathering links, was going to do a front page post but I realized that would be like using the ladder to get on stilts.
posted by clavdivs at 4:56 PM on January 6 [2 favorites]
Thank you Johnofjack for putting that so clearly and succinctly. As I said elsewhere, while I've criticized films and tv shows on FF, I've never said any of them shouldn't be posted or that the person who posted did so only for "imaginary internet points."
posted by miss-lapin at 4:57 PM on January 6 [5 favorites]
posted by miss-lapin at 4:57 PM on January 6 [5 favorites]
Sorry if someone else already suggested this, but if the goal is to get more people to comment, it would help to link to threads for currently popular titles (box office, streaming, whatever) on the home page even if those threads don’t have a lot of comments or activity yet. Along with the great idea of having threads with recent comments and the watercooler threads prominently displayed there.
posted by Carmelita Spats at 5:18 PM on January 6 [2 favorites]
posted by Carmelita Spats at 5:18 PM on January 6 [2 favorites]
If someone figures out how FF clout works, please advise.
I know, we shall write a screenplay.
Metafilter: Wallachian Core.
(I think it's kind of ridiculous man just don't let it get to you.)
Clout seeker on fanfare.
well, perhaps one course of action to acquire or establish clout like credit but not quite is to boldly walk into a fantastic analytical discussion of tinker Tailor soldier Spy and Smiley's people ill prepared.
so let's take my ass back to 2015 when Carsonb posted about my favorite TV series
Carson is a prince but I sorta bumbled in, sorta pointy fingered, searching for clues within clues. The Brixton scratchy grammar, didn't even follow the implicit guidelines for one DVD set as opposed to another.
conversation within that thread by the other members was fantastic and really spot on, well written, humorous at times and I did my best to keep up because I do know that show and the books very well.
but I was utterly amazed that a few other people would know just as much, nay, more than I did about this show. but I kept on going through the whole damn series just for the hopes that I could catch a point that no one else did. you can hear it my voice. I'm not sure if I did or not but that could be an aspect of seeking clout.
I really did learn a lot, not to treat fanfare as a willy-nilly discussion board, to be respectful and appreciative of people who know a lot about Cinema that I enjoy also.
in short, I was seeking clout within the group, within that thread, because they already had it. I miss those members contributions today but I had nothing to do with fanfare nearly 10 years ago.
another point, zarq did Stargate universe post years ago and like no one commented and I wanted to go ahead and do a rewatch but I'm just not too sure because cricket's. guess I was surprised it didn't get any comments or very few.
man f*** the orrt clout Furtună de rahat.
posted by clavdivs at 5:31 PM on January 6 [2 favorites]
I know, we shall write a screenplay.
Metafilter: Wallachian Core.
(I think it's kind of ridiculous man just don't let it get to you.)
Clout seeker on fanfare.
well, perhaps one course of action to acquire or establish clout like credit but not quite is to boldly walk into a fantastic analytical discussion of tinker Tailor soldier Spy and Smiley's people ill prepared.
so let's take my ass back to 2015 when Carsonb posted about my favorite TV series
Carson is a prince but I sorta bumbled in, sorta pointy fingered, searching for clues within clues. The Brixton scratchy grammar, didn't even follow the implicit guidelines for one DVD set as opposed to another.
conversation within that thread by the other members was fantastic and really spot on, well written, humorous at times and I did my best to keep up because I do know that show and the books very well.
but I was utterly amazed that a few other people would know just as much, nay, more than I did about this show. but I kept on going through the whole damn series just for the hopes that I could catch a point that no one else did. you can hear it my voice. I'm not sure if I did or not but that could be an aspect of seeking clout.
I really did learn a lot, not to treat fanfare as a willy-nilly discussion board, to be respectful and appreciative of people who know a lot about Cinema that I enjoy also.
in short, I was seeking clout within the group, within that thread, because they already had it. I miss those members contributions today but I had nothing to do with fanfare nearly 10 years ago.
another point, zarq did Stargate universe post years ago and like no one commented and I wanted to go ahead and do a rewatch but I'm just not too sure because cricket's. guess I was surprised it didn't get any comments or very few.
man f*** the orrt clout Furtună de rahat.
posted by clavdivs at 5:31 PM on January 6 [2 favorites]
I believe I have convinced exactly zero people to watch this film
Looks under hood, studies gauges
"Ahh, I see your problem right here.. you're running on low clout, sir"
posted by ginger.beef at 5:34 PM on January 6 [8 favorites]
Looks under hood, studies gauges
"Ahh, I see your problem right here.. you're running on low clout, sir"
posted by ginger.beef at 5:34 PM on January 6 [8 favorites]
holy smokes, I think that last sentence was almost a dialect in euroican Belter.
posted by clavdivs at 5:37 PM on January 6 [1 favorite]
posted by clavdivs at 5:37 PM on January 6 [1 favorite]
Oh man you had to mention zarq. Now I'm even sadder.
posted by miss-lapin at 5:41 PM on January 6 [2 favorites]
posted by miss-lapin at 5:41 PM on January 6 [2 favorites]
I don't know about clout, but every time I post a shitty action movie to FanFare Roland Emmerich sends me $15.
posted by phunniemee at 5:41 PM on January 6 [11 favorites]
posted by phunniemee at 5:41 PM on January 6 [11 favorites]
I remember when the Nielsen people used to send cash, in the mail, with a questionnaire. no strings attached.
$5.
posted by clavdivs at 5:58 PM on January 6 [2 favorites]
$5.
posted by clavdivs at 5:58 PM on January 6 [2 favorites]
They still do
posted by Carillon at 6:00 PM on January 6 [1 favorite]
posted by Carillon at 6:00 PM on January 6 [1 favorite]
They do! Cash in the invitation, more cash when you send it back.
posted by mochapickle at 6:15 PM on January 6
posted by mochapickle at 6:15 PM on January 6
Oh man you had to mention zarq. Now I'm even sadder.
[researches what happened to zarq]
That seems like it could have been handled better.
posted by Lemkin at 6:24 PM on January 6 [3 favorites]
[researches what happened to zarq]
That seems like it could have been handled better.
posted by Lemkin at 6:24 PM on January 6 [3 favorites]
MetaTalk: That seems like it could have been handled better.
posted by phunniemee at 6:26 PM on January 6 [13 favorites]
posted by phunniemee at 6:26 PM on January 6 [13 favorites]
holy s*** Carillon,YOU STARTLED ME. just now looking in the archives because I was just about to link you from your Stargate post and bundle it in with
Roland Emmerich sends me $15.
posted by phunniemee.
with something like "same as in Abydos".
but...
see, see what I've been saying for years
of course I could be completely wrong about that and it's just coincidental.
I have saved a screenshot of my chrome history Carillon, it's like within 3 minutes of your comment.
okay I'm chatting a lot but here'an idea but it's aggregated from a larger idea I had about askme so let's sta/rt with the askme question. to digress, I'm sort of a attraction rather than promotion sort of person but that's in the real world. for having problems attracting new members perhaps we should promote and here's the idea
Askme vs. Yale.
anybody here go to Yale.
so find the criteria, subject matter, the format and have a competition between the university and ask me. have the University ask askme certain questions under categories like literature, science, humorous moments in medieval history.
I want to see those arcane questions come flying in and see askme people knock em out of park, we can even form a committee, that'd be fair, have a bunch of people on science some on literature, be like a combination of Umberto Ecos footnotes and Jeopardy.
take on rotten tomatoes with maybe like an obscure movie post.
posted by clavdivs at 6:29 PM on January 6 [2 favorites]
Roland Emmerich sends me $15.
posted by phunniemee.
with something like "same as in Abydos".
but...
see, see what I've been saying for years
of course I could be completely wrong about that and it's just coincidental.
I have saved a screenshot of my chrome history Carillon, it's like within 3 minutes of your comment.
okay I'm chatting a lot but here'an idea but it's aggregated from a larger idea I had about askme so let's sta/rt with the askme question. to digress, I'm sort of a attraction rather than promotion sort of person but that's in the real world. for having problems attracting new members perhaps we should promote and here's the idea
Askme vs. Yale.
anybody here go to Yale.
so find the criteria, subject matter, the format and have a competition between the university and ask me. have the University ask askme certain questions under categories like literature, science, humorous moments in medieval history.
I want to see those arcane questions come flying in and see askme people knock em out of park, we can even form a committee, that'd be fair, have a bunch of people on science some on literature, be like a combination of Umberto Ecos footnotes and Jeopardy.
take on rotten tomatoes with maybe like an obscure movie post.
posted by clavdivs at 6:29 PM on January 6 [2 favorites]
[eggman-what-are-you-two-fucking-talking-about.jpg]
Anyway the reason I don't post in Fanfare much is that I'm not a fandom person and rarely feel compelled to discuss single works in isolation. My thoughts on The Haunting of Hill House and House of Leaves and Subcutanean and Piranesi as individual works were spouted in vivo to my partner and then I had little interest in seeking out further social connection based on those works. I like to read people's thoughts on it, but my own usually seem too banal or rambling to be worth corralling into words just because I recently finished reading/watching a thing.
I find it much easier to engage in, well... meta-analysis of media, for lack of a better term. If we wanted to talk about the idea of Houses As Characters and compare/contrast how this concept is utilized across works, I'd be down. I suppose I could do that on an individual Fanfare page for any of the above works but it doesn't usually occur to me to do. When I discuss media it's usually on a blue post that brings up a concept or theme and that prompts me to think/talk about various works in a different way than "here's what I liked/didn't like about x."
I sort of like the idea of "theme" posts inviting people to share their thoughts on many works surrounding a central concept/theme, but I'm not a regular enough user of Fanfare to know if that would be a good proposal or not.
posted by brook horse at 7:53 PM on January 6 [2 favorites]
Anyway the reason I don't post in Fanfare much is that I'm not a fandom person and rarely feel compelled to discuss single works in isolation. My thoughts on The Haunting of Hill House and House of Leaves and Subcutanean and Piranesi as individual works were spouted in vivo to my partner and then I had little interest in seeking out further social connection based on those works. I like to read people's thoughts on it, but my own usually seem too banal or rambling to be worth corralling into words just because I recently finished reading/watching a thing.
I find it much easier to engage in, well... meta-analysis of media, for lack of a better term. If we wanted to talk about the idea of Houses As Characters and compare/contrast how this concept is utilized across works, I'd be down. I suppose I could do that on an individual Fanfare page for any of the above works but it doesn't usually occur to me to do. When I discuss media it's usually on a blue post that brings up a concept or theme and that prompts me to think/talk about various works in a different way than "here's what I liked/didn't like about x."
I sort of like the idea of "theme" posts inviting people to share their thoughts on many works surrounding a central concept/theme, but I'm not a regular enough user of Fanfare to know if that would be a good proposal or not.
posted by brook horse at 7:53 PM on January 6 [2 favorites]
kitteh, you need to know that my wife and I are watching Evil ONLY because I read each and every one of your FF posts about it. We’re about midway thru the last season and we’ve enjoyed all of it quite a bit. Bonkers show! And you have bonkers clout!
posted by ashbury at 8:38 PM on January 6 [6 favorites]
posted by ashbury at 8:38 PM on January 6 [6 favorites]
Well now I really want to catch up with the final season Evil, too so I can enjoy those posts.
posted by DirtyOldTown at 8:41 PM on January 6 [3 favorites]
posted by DirtyOldTown at 8:41 PM on January 6 [3 favorites]
Here's a rough comp of an idea for the FanFare homepage. Divide it into two columns, one for Popular and one for Recent, putting the relevant posts and comments on either side. Include a thumbnail of the show/media.
I like the idea of clickable, single line links (with no comments)of FF posts appearing on the main page. Do it for Ask, Music, Projects, and IRL too now there's a really full home page.
Otherwise, is there a particular website that does reviews of media really well? If so, please mention, so we look at it and steal ideas!
posted by Brandon Blatcher (staff) at 8:47 PM on January 6 [8 favorites]
I like the idea of clickable, single line links (with no comments)of FF posts appearing on the main page. Do it for Ask, Music, Projects, and IRL too now there's a really full home page.
Otherwise, is there a particular website that does reviews of media really well? If so, please mention, so we look at it and steal ideas!
posted by Brandon Blatcher (staff) at 8:47 PM on January 6 [8 favorites]
I would love to have some kind of feature like Projects has for voting where people can click if if they would recommend the movie, and I'd also love some broad genre drop-down like how you have to select a category in Ask. Then when I'm in the mood for something funny I could go and scroll through the comedies and grab something that's got a lot of recommendations.
Because like for example, I have a fondness for mediocre large budget horror movies. Which means yes, I went and saw Trap in theaters. Trap is not a movie I would recommend anyone to see. My FanFare post wasn't an endorsement. But I sure did see it, and reading other people say things like "I've been watching this 2 hour film for 4 hours somehow" was fun for me. Tl;dr I think FanFare would be enhanced by enabling people to more easily browse the archives to find something new to watch (and would be a marketable feature, if anyone here still talks about Metafilter to strangers), but prioritizing discussion is important, too.
posted by phunniemee at 8:56 PM on January 6 [3 favorites]
Because like for example, I have a fondness for mediocre large budget horror movies. Which means yes, I went and saw Trap in theaters. Trap is not a movie I would recommend anyone to see. My FanFare post wasn't an endorsement. But I sure did see it, and reading other people say things like "I've been watching this 2 hour film for 4 hours somehow" was fun for me. Tl;dr I think FanFare would be enhanced by enabling people to more easily browse the archives to find something new to watch (and would be a marketable feature, if anyone here still talks about Metafilter to strangers), but prioritizing discussion is important, too.
posted by phunniemee at 8:56 PM on January 6 [3 favorites]
Rich hearty lols from this thread, it is good to laugh so thanks to all involved
posted by Sebmojo at 9:29 PM on January 6 [1 favorite]
posted by Sebmojo at 9:29 PM on January 6 [1 favorite]
LESS CLOUT MORE KLUTE
I really enjoy FanFare, it's my third stop after MeFi and MeTa. I don't watch much TV and my film-watching is sporadic but I take a look at most movie posts. I don't comment much because I'd like my contributions there to be more constructive than a lazy vapid "I liked this!" or a lazy kneejerk* "I didn't like this!"
Unfortunately I don't have any strategies to boost FF's visibility. DOT's round-up FPP is well done, definitely a good idea! Just wanted to thank the folks who contribute there for making it an enjoyable place to visit
*I save my lazy vapidity and lazy kneejerkiness for the Blue and the Gray, respectively
posted by Alvy Ampersand at 9:52 PM on January 6 [3 favorites]
I really enjoy FanFare, it's my third stop after MeFi and MeTa. I don't watch much TV and my film-watching is sporadic but I take a look at most movie posts. I don't comment much because I'd like my contributions there to be more constructive than a lazy vapid "I liked this!" or a lazy kneejerk* "I didn't like this!"
Unfortunately I don't have any strategies to boost FF's visibility. DOT's round-up FPP is well done, definitely a good idea! Just wanted to thank the folks who contribute there for making it an enjoyable place to visit
*I save my lazy vapidity and lazy kneejerkiness for the Blue and the Gray, respectively
posted by Alvy Ampersand at 9:52 PM on January 6 [3 favorites]
I•CLOVTIVS
posted by Jon Mitchell at 10:25 PM on January 6 [6 favorites]
posted by Jon Mitchell at 10:25 PM on January 6 [6 favorites]
The moment when FanFare could have been a vibrant and engaging space for media discussion passed years ago. Terrible mobile interface, random assortment of titles with very few comments, and going by this MetaTalk post, a lot of odd grudges being carried.
posted by betweenthebars at 11:11 PM on January 6 [1 favorite]
posted by betweenthebars at 11:11 PM on January 6 [1 favorite]
kitteh, you need to know that my wife and I are watching Evil ONLY because I read each and every one of your FF posts about it. We’re about midway thru the last season and we’ve enjoyed all of it quite a bit. Bonkers show! And you have bonkers clout!
Oh, thank you! That's very nice of you to say. Evil was one of the wildest shows I've watched in a while and I miss it. I hope in their Evil Fictional Universe, Ben Shakir is no longer Going Through It.
IIRC, the Hannibal posts on FanFare did lead me to meet Gillian Anderson and Mads Mikkelsen at a TO con. I had my pic taken with them with a small MeFi sign. I'll see if I can find it in my Imgur account and re-post it. (So many MeFites encouraged this, IIRC.)
posted by Kitteh at 3:36 AM on January 7 [4 favorites]
Oh, thank you! That's very nice of you to say. Evil was one of the wildest shows I've watched in a while and I miss it. I hope in their Evil Fictional Universe, Ben Shakir is no longer Going Through It.
IIRC, the Hannibal posts on FanFare did lead me to meet Gillian Anderson and Mads Mikkelsen at a TO con. I had my pic taken with them with a small MeFi sign. I'll see if I can find it in my Imgur account and re-post it. (So many MeFites encouraged this, IIRC.)
posted by Kitteh at 3:36 AM on January 7 [4 favorites]
Recently there have been catch-all FPPs on the Blue where folks could share individual links that they weren't ready to make a full post about.
It would be neat for FanFare to also have a place for people to do the same...and I suggest that in pure selfishness, because you all are smarter and have much broader backgrounds than I do, and I wish to farm your expertise like ants tending their aphids.
posted by wenestvedt at 5:45 AM on January 7 [1 favorite]
It would be neat for FanFare to also have a place for people to do the same...and I suggest that in pure selfishness, because you all are smarter and have much broader backgrounds than I do, and I wish to farm your expertise like ants tending their aphids.
posted by wenestvedt at 5:45 AM on January 7 [1 favorite]
I just told someone to watch ANTS: Nature's Secret Power the other day in Ask and I can't believe I forgot to call out the aphid herding as a draw. I'm also now realizing I used planes instead of plains, which I guess isn't technically wrong but isn't as specific as I had intended.
posted by phunniemee at 5:51 AM on January 7 [1 favorite]
posted by phunniemee at 5:51 AM on January 7 [1 favorite]
I find it much easier to engage in, well... meta-analysis of media, for lack of a better term. If we wanted to talk about the idea of Houses As Characters and compare/contrast how this concept is utilized across works, I'd be down. I suppose I could do that on an individual Fanfare page for any of the above works but it doesn't usually occur to me to do.
This feels like a thing that FanFare talk could be used for, though I think it is generally not.
As a general question -- could/should FanFare be used that way, and if so, is there any potential site upgrades or best practices using the current tools that would support that?
posted by jacquilynne at 6:31 AM on January 7
This feels like a thing that FanFare talk could be used for, though I think it is generally not.
As a general question -- could/should FanFare be used that way, and if so, is there any potential site upgrades or best practices using the current tools that would support that?
posted by jacquilynne at 6:31 AM on January 7
“I wish more people who make a FanFare post would very plainly say, "This $WORK was good/bad."
But it’s FAN fare so we’re not supposed to say anything was bad, according to a mod.
Yeah, but they only said that after looking at your history of saying nothing more than "$WORK was crap". Or name-dropping Uwe Boll in a review of Buffy the Vampire Slayer for some reason. Such a comment really doesn't encourage continuation of the conversation, so it's not clear what you were trying to achieve save for trying to show off how cool you were or something.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 6:41 AM on January 7 [3 favorites]
But it’s FAN fare so we’re not supposed to say anything was bad, according to a mod.
Yeah, but they only said that after looking at your history of saying nothing more than "$WORK was crap". Or name-dropping Uwe Boll in a review of Buffy the Vampire Slayer for some reason. Such a comment really doesn't encourage continuation of the conversation, so it's not clear what you were trying to achieve save for trying to show off how cool you were or something.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 6:41 AM on January 7 [3 favorites]
speaking of sock puppet handles
posted by ginger.beef at 6:46 AM on January 7
posted by ginger.beef at 6:46 AM on January 7
My take? Ideefixe has been an annoying little shit for years so if years of flagging doesn't work and years of ignoring doesn't work, maybe we should all follow their lead and follow them around the site trolling them relentlessly instead.
posted by phunniemee at 6:56 AM on January 7 [4 favorites]
posted by phunniemee at 6:56 AM on January 7 [4 favorites]
Hey guys leave Ideefixe alone I'm sure they're gathering up a veritable horde of gems to share with us on FanFare to show us how it's really done
posted by Alvy Ampersand at 7:13 AM on January 7 [6 favorites]
posted by Alvy Ampersand at 7:13 AM on January 7 [6 favorites]
Mod note: ... maybe we should all follow their lead and follow them around the site trolling them relentlessly instead.
No, this doesn't help anything and causes problems of its own, so please don't anyone do this.
posted by Brandon Blatcher (staff) at 7:54 AM on January 7 [6 favorites]
No, this doesn't help anything and causes problems of its own, so please don't anyone do this.
posted by Brandon Blatcher (staff) at 7:54 AM on January 7 [6 favorites]
I appreciate that on a mod level, that clarification is a good and logical thing to add.
But no worries: very nearly everything phunniemee says in MeTa is a joke.
posted by DirtyOldTown at 8:08 AM on January 7
But no worries: very nearly everything phunniemee says in MeTa is a joke.
posted by DirtyOldTown at 8:08 AM on January 7
The clout derail was introduced by Ideefixe who is not arguing against it
The closest thing Ideefixe said to anything about clout was:
posted by Why Is The World In Love Again? at 8:11 AM on January 7 [3 favorites]
The closest thing Ideefixe said to anything about clout was:
Posts about bad or mediocre films seem to be chiefly made to increase the posters’ activity counts—most of the time, the posters don’t seem to explain what they liked about these films.Which is rude, but I don’t think that’s necessarily the same as complaining about “clout”, especially in the completely invented way people are arguing about whether their obscure tastes are come by honestly or not. I guess that’s a point where reasonable people can disagree, but I feel like it’s much more in the vein that people complain (also rudely, most of the time) about others posting “too much” to any of the other subsitrs.
posted by Why Is The World In Love Again? at 8:11 AM on January 7 [3 favorites]
It was a threadshit. It was something crappy he tossed off into the conversation before bouncing.
It's what he does.
posted by DirtyOldTown at 8:18 AM on January 7 [2 favorites]
It's what he does.
posted by DirtyOldTown at 8:18 AM on January 7 [2 favorites]
ANYWHO...
Serious request for the mods... would it be possible, on a test basis, for FanFare Talk posts to show up amongst the posts on the FF front page? It's not a perfect solution to the various problems/feature requests above, but it could be a workaround for a bit.
If FF Talk posts made it to the front page, they could be a means for now of:
Serious request for the mods... would it be possible, on a test basis, for FanFare Talk posts to show up amongst the posts on the FF front page? It's not a perfect solution to the various problems/feature requests above, but it could be a workaround for a bit.
If FF Talk posts made it to the front page, they could be a means for now of:
- providing short posts to bump a title back to the front page
- making "does anyone want to post about this?" posts more visible
- allowing "theme" posts ("Ten best disaster movies on FanFare")
No, this doesn't help anything and causes problems of its own, so please don't anyone do this.
Regina George voice: so you agree, Ideefixe's style of Metafilter engagement is bad.
posted by phunniemee at 8:36 AM on January 7 [10 favorites]
Regina George voice: so you agree, Ideefixe's style of Metafilter engagement is bad.
posted by phunniemee at 8:36 AM on January 7 [10 favorites]
I agree with making FFTalk visible on the FF front page (possibly with an option to filter them in line with what exists by medium)
Also, is there a way to view the archives of FFTalk, because if there is, it’s totally opaque to me. The Archives page only includes FFMain posts.
posted by Why Is The World In Love Again? at 8:42 AM on January 7 [2 favorites]
Also, is there a way to view the archives of FFTalk, because if there is, it’s totally opaque to me. The Archives page only includes FFMain posts.
posted by Why Is The World In Love Again? at 8:42 AM on January 7 [2 favorites]
Yeah, something I posted to FF Talk got buried for some reason. I was trying to gauge interest in a kind of unique TV show post and how to handle it.
I'll try here, what the hell - so, there's the UK news comedy panel show Have I Got News For You, which has been around for 30 years. And its finally inspired a US remake just this year. And honestly, both deserve some love - but should there be just one thread for both, or one for UK and one for US? Especially since the only way for USians to watch the UK one is via occasional Youtube uploads?
....I'm happy to start a post about the US one if someone else wants to cover the UK one. Both versions have given me great joy in recent years - there's a line from one UK episode in which Ian Hillsop (one of the regulars) describes Trump's decorating style as "Late Qaddafi" and that still makes me giggle. The US version also has the same production team behind it so they welcome the same irreverence (Tennessee GOP Senator Tim Burchett is on one episode, and Amber Ruffin does not let him get away with much).
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 8:49 AM on January 7
I'll try here, what the hell - so, there's the UK news comedy panel show Have I Got News For You, which has been around for 30 years. And its finally inspired a US remake just this year. And honestly, both deserve some love - but should there be just one thread for both, or one for UK and one for US? Especially since the only way for USians to watch the UK one is via occasional Youtube uploads?
....I'm happy to start a post about the US one if someone else wants to cover the UK one. Both versions have given me great joy in recent years - there's a line from one UK episode in which Ian Hillsop (one of the regulars) describes Trump's decorating style as "Late Qaddafi" and that still makes me giggle. The US version also has the same production team behind it so they welcome the same irreverence (Tennessee GOP Senator Tim Burchett is on one episode, and Amber Ruffin does not let him get away with much).
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 8:49 AM on January 7
Well I did not know there was a Fanfare Talk at all, and my vision impaired ass has only just realized there's another row of links beneath the second row of headers on ALL of the sites, so... TIL.
I've literally just been scouring the page for (2 new) or whatever instead of the recent comments button... what...
posted by brook horse at 8:57 AM on January 7 [5 favorites]
I've literally just been scouring the page for (2 new) or whatever instead of the recent comments button... what...
posted by brook horse at 8:57 AM on January 7 [5 favorites]
Before this MeTa was brought to my attention in the FF comments to the Saturday Night post (cheers to you, ginger.beef) I had just done the thing where I finally got around to watching a film (Stowaway) years after it came out and had already been discussed at length ages ago on FF. There are some films I watch and in the middle I wonder what my FF peeps will have to say about it. I’m always so enlightened by what ya’ll have to say.
That’s what keeps me coming back. So thank you.
posted by edithkeeler at 9:51 AM on January 7 [2 favorites]
That’s what keeps me coming back. So thank you.
posted by edithkeeler at 9:51 AM on January 7 [2 favorites]
CLOUT CLOUT
GIVE ME SOME CLOUT
I'M ONLY HERE TO RECEIVE THE CLOUT
SO COME ON
I'M TALKING TO YOU
COME ON
with apologies to TfF
posted by ginger.beef at 9:55 AM on January 7 [4 favorites]
GIVE ME SOME CLOUT
I'M ONLY HERE TO RECEIVE THE CLOUT
SO COME ON
I'M TALKING TO YOU
COME ON
with apologies to TfF
posted by ginger.beef at 9:55 AM on January 7 [4 favorites]
I found the second headers maybe a year ago and I reluctantly started using them on Blue, but I assumed they would be basically the same everywhere. I never noticed Fanfare Talk exists, not even when I used Fanfare regularly to look up Agents of Shield or the Pratchett threads.
posted by Ashenmote at 9:56 AM on January 7
posted by Ashenmote at 9:56 AM on January 7
Somehow I’m picturing FanFare Talk as one person sitting alone in the dusty barroom of a Western ghost town, repeatedly slapping themselves in the face.
posted by Lemkin at 10:03 AM on January 7 [1 favorite]
posted by Lemkin at 10:03 AM on January 7 [1 favorite]
Now I know what it feels like when users that don't keep up with MeTa randomly decide to click on the latest 100+ comment post and read the entire thing with no additional context. Yeesh.
(I think the time for FF to get big was years ago and I don't understand the appeal of recreating IMDB on Metafilter but people seem to dig it so sure, why not.)
posted by Diskeater at 10:10 AM on January 7 [1 favorite]
(I think the time for FF to get big was years ago and I don't understand the appeal of recreating IMDB on Metafilter but people seem to dig it so sure, why not.)
posted by Diskeater at 10:10 AM on January 7 [1 favorite]
I don't understand the appeal of recreating IMDB on Metafilter
I used to love reading the message boards on IMDb pages but they got rid of those years ago.
posted by phunniemee at 10:12 AM on January 7 [4 favorites]
I used to love reading the message boards on IMDb pages but they got rid of those years ago.
posted by phunniemee at 10:12 AM on January 7 [4 favorites]
MetaFilter: I don’t understand the appeal, but people seem to dig it, so sure, why not
posted by Lemkin at 10:19 AM on January 7 [1 favorite]
posted by Lemkin at 10:19 AM on January 7 [1 favorite]
The appeal is the people on MetaFilter.
posted by DirtyOldTown at 10:25 AM on January 7 [10 favorites]
posted by DirtyOldTown at 10:25 AM on January 7 [10 favorites]
Now I know what it feels like when
Diskeater, for someone who has been on MetaFilter since 2006 your 'Now' is a little suspect
posted by ginger.beef at 10:27 AM on January 7 [2 favorites]
Diskeater, for someone who has been on MetaFilter since 2006 your 'Now' is a little suspect
posted by ginger.beef at 10:27 AM on January 7 [2 favorites]
Yeah the appeal of FF is to have what happens on Metafilter, conversations in text on a variety of topics with all those twists and turns with like minded or interesting people, about the media we consume. IMDB is, at best, a strictly informational website. Only a handful of their former social functionality remains - rating, list making, a watchlist, some crowd sourcing information correction but that's it. The commenting, if you're looking for it, has largely migrated to Letterboxd.
posted by Ashwagandha at 10:34 AM on January 7 [4 favorites]
posted by Ashwagandha at 10:34 AM on January 7 [4 favorites]
I appreciate the front page of FanFare which lets me know of new stuff that I might not have heard of otherwise. My household particularly enjoyed "The Second Best Hospital in the Galaxy" and "River" which I learned of because Halloween Jack and DirtyOldTown talked about them. Thank you to everyone who posts whatever you have recently enjoyed, however popular or niche or hard-to-find it may be!
(But I guess in general I think of commenting more as adding a little stone to the pile, and less as seeking out conversation. And mostly I just like looking at the pile of stones other people have left.)
posted by nobody
I do comment on years-old FanFare threads. I appreciate adding my stone to the cairn, and knowing somebody a year or five from now may also benefit from my contribution.
I hadn't noticed the "Recent Posts / FanFare Talk / Clubs / Recent Comments / Watercooler / My FanFare" tabs on FanFare either till this discussion led me to go find them (just below "welcome back brainwane | [number] new [MeFi Mail messages] | logout" in the upper right, in the Classic theme). Good to know!
I skimmed through my FanFare commenting history while writing this comment, and realized that I often mention "here's a funny thing my spouse said while we were watching this", so I got to smile all over again at those memories. :-)
posted by brainwane at 10:47 AM on January 7 [9 favorites]
(But I guess in general I think of commenting more as adding a little stone to the pile, and less as seeking out conversation. And mostly I just like looking at the pile of stones other people have left.)
posted by nobody
I do comment on years-old FanFare threads. I appreciate adding my stone to the cairn, and knowing somebody a year or five from now may also benefit from my contribution.
I hadn't noticed the "Recent Posts / FanFare Talk / Clubs / Recent Comments / Watercooler / My FanFare" tabs on FanFare either till this discussion led me to go find them (just below "welcome back brainwane | [number] new [MeFi Mail messages] | logout" in the upper right, in the Classic theme). Good to know!
I skimmed through my FanFare commenting history while writing this comment, and realized that I often mention "here's a funny thing my spouse said while we were watching this", so I got to smile all over again at those memories. :-)
posted by brainwane at 10:47 AM on January 7 [9 favorites]
Just wanted to chirp up again that it's never too late to comment on a movie. I religiously use Recent Activity as part of my MeFi experience and I love it when I see someone commenting on something that came out 10 years ago or 10 weeks ago. If I have the time and I feel a response would be positive, I'll even swoop back in and engage.
I've always assumed a lot of people use Recent Activity to maintain conversations in posts that have drifted down off the front page, but if that's not the case, then it should be something that's encouraged. Heck, maybe even a simple small banner or something on FF that encourages folks or reminds them that this is a great tool for engagement.
Or perhaps, the banner pops up in movies/show posts that hit a certain age since release or even, once they've fallen off the FP. "Hey there! Just saw this [film/show/etc]? Go ahead and post, there's a great chance someone using Recent Activity will see and engage!] Or even just remind folks that they can offer their own insight adding to the collective review of the item.
We have some really great MeFites who devote a lot of time to the conversation in FF, so I definitely recommend listening to their opinions and suggestions.
posted by Atreides at 10:52 AM on January 7 [8 favorites]
I've always assumed a lot of people use Recent Activity to maintain conversations in posts that have drifted down off the front page, but if that's not the case, then it should be something that's encouraged. Heck, maybe even a simple small banner or something on FF that encourages folks or reminds them that this is a great tool for engagement.
Or perhaps, the banner pops up in movies/show posts that hit a certain age since release or even, once they've fallen off the FP. "Hey there! Just saw this [film/show/etc]? Go ahead and post, there's a great chance someone using Recent Activity will see and engage!] Or even just remind folks that they can offer their own insight adding to the collective review of the item.
We have some really great MeFites who devote a lot of time to the conversation in FF, so I definitely recommend listening to their opinions and suggestions.
posted by Atreides at 10:52 AM on January 7 [8 favorites]
The appeal is the people on MetaFilter.
the appeal is the friends we made along the way
posted by chavenet at 11:17 AM on January 7 [2 favorites]
the appeal is the friends we made along the way
posted by chavenet at 11:17 AM on January 7 [2 favorites]
I do wish people would generally add more context in FanFare posts. The year of the movie at the very least. Whether it's a movie or a series. The country it is from. Just more general info.
Many times people do this, but it's frustrating when there's hardly any detail. I don't post there so I have no business criticizing anyone else. Just making my opinion heard.
posted by SoberHighland at 3:24 PM on January 7 [4 favorites]
Many times people do this, but it's frustrating when there's hardly any detail. I don't post there so I have no business criticizing anyone else. Just making my opinion heard.
posted by SoberHighland at 3:24 PM on January 7 [4 favorites]
"The appeal is the people on MetaFilter."
in the game of baseball, a batter will come to plate perhaps on the first swing they lean into the ball as the crowd and teams watch, the stadium mutterings get lower, release, and crack, right feild,out of the park like slow motion and everybody's watching, sometimes.
Une nouvelle canette de spiritueux mon ami, bien dit.
Quelle est cette idée fixe ala clout.
ah, say, la, V.
so I'm going to start working on John Adams both the series and book for comparison contrast. for example when Adam's spoke at dinner when he was in France about how Americans need to be Farmers then lawyers then astronomers and then poets. It really came from a letter.
I even did a three link first post mock up of the introduction music in the opening credits central thesis would have been the 20 seconds of missing slow strings which adds to the progressive nature of the piece.
but posting is rather new to me so I might use fan fare talk to ask a few questions seems like the appropriate place.
one quick question, I wonder if I could do a crossover from movies I've posted on the blue over to the FF, that wouldn't be like a double if you added new information or something like that.
before my battery died, I responded to Brandon's mock up, I think it's kind of neat but I would like to see one page with minimal information like
Alien: Romulus. movie etc etc.
on one line or two.on mobile, you could scroll through a day or two a lot quicker. I would assume that the link on this new page would go right to the standard format for FF posting. I like it because it looks lean and you could do more with the space as an add-on not that FF looks clunky because all the relevant data that is there.
posted by clavdivs at 4:39 PM on January 7
in the game of baseball, a batter will come to plate perhaps on the first swing they lean into the ball as the crowd and teams watch, the stadium mutterings get lower, release, and crack, right feild,out of the park like slow motion and everybody's watching, sometimes.
Une nouvelle canette de spiritueux mon ami, bien dit.
Quelle est cette idée fixe ala clout.
ah, say, la, V.
so I'm going to start working on John Adams both the series and book for comparison contrast. for example when Adam's spoke at dinner when he was in France about how Americans need to be Farmers then lawyers then astronomers and then poets. It really came from a letter.
I even did a three link first post mock up of the introduction music in the opening credits central thesis would have been the 20 seconds of missing slow strings which adds to the progressive nature of the piece.
but posting is rather new to me so I might use fan fare talk to ask a few questions seems like the appropriate place.
one quick question, I wonder if I could do a crossover from movies I've posted on the blue over to the FF, that wouldn't be like a double if you added new information or something like that.
before my battery died, I responded to Brandon's mock up, I think it's kind of neat but I would like to see one page with minimal information like
Alien: Romulus. movie etc etc.
on one line or two.on mobile, you could scroll through a day or two a lot quicker. I would assume that the link on this new page would go right to the standard format for FF posting. I like it because it looks lean and you could do more with the space as an add-on not that FF looks clunky because all the relevant data that is there.
posted by clavdivs at 4:39 PM on January 7
Mod note: One comment removed. Please avoid stirring things up with other sites/communities.
posted by Brandon Blatcher (staff) at 5:03 AM on January 8 [1 favorite]
posted by Brandon Blatcher (staff) at 5:03 AM on January 8 [1 favorite]
Mod note: Serious request for the mods... would it be possible, on a test basis, for FanFare Talk posts to show up amongst the posts on the FF front page? It's not a perfect solution to the various problems/feature requests above, but it could be a workaround for a bit.
Frimble is still recovering from surgery, so this can't happen soon, but it can happen eventually, no ETA on when, feel free to check back with us in two-three weeks!
posted by Brandon Blatcher (staff) at 7:36 AM on January 8
Frimble is still recovering from surgery, so this can't happen soon, but it can happen eventually, no ETA on when, feel free to check back with us in two-three weeks!
posted by Brandon Blatcher (staff) at 7:36 AM on January 8
I am tempted to get in on some of this fabulous clout, and fed up of waiting for people to post the latest big budget trash movies so I can vent on my latest poor choice about how to spend two hours of my life. What's the best best way to post stuff I am going to vent in? Largely factual with venting saved for a comment in the thread? Or would people generally prefer me not post stuff that I hated at all? Or can I just label stuff as hatewatching in the FPP? Is that a thing?
Thanks in advance for your input.
posted by biffa at 8:05 AM on January 8 [3 favorites]
Thanks in advance for your input.
posted by biffa at 8:05 AM on January 8 [3 favorites]
this is just one person's opinion, but any approach to a post like that seems valid to me
imo it's all about what you bring to the table: whether you really liked something or hated it, you want to share that, I don't see how any of that is not valid
posted by ginger.beef at 8:09 AM on January 8
imo it's all about what you bring to the table: whether you really liked something or hated it, you want to share that, I don't see how any of that is not valid
posted by ginger.beef at 8:09 AM on January 8
I usually try to make the post as neutral as possible, just taking the IMDB description and giving it normal tags (i.e. don't tag it "shit").
Then I post a first comment with my actual opinions.
I don't really get why people hatewatch on purpose. I try to choose movies I will enjoy. Occasionally I get it wrong, e.g. with "65". But generally however terrible I think the movie is, there's always someone who likes it.
posted by TheophileEscargot at 8:45 AM on January 8 [6 favorites]
Then I post a first comment with my actual opinions.
I don't really get why people hatewatch on purpose. I try to choose movies I will enjoy. Occasionally I get it wrong, e.g. with "65". But generally however terrible I think the movie is, there's always someone who likes it.
posted by TheophileEscargot at 8:45 AM on January 8 [6 favorites]
I agree with the neutral post style. Make it informative. Then circle around to your feelings in a comment. Sometimes it's good to let someone else make the first post, just so you don't set the tone - but if you don't like something, you don't like something and it's okay to share that.
posted by Atreides at 8:55 AM on January 8 [4 favorites]
posted by Atreides at 8:55 AM on January 8 [4 favorites]
Here's something I want people to consider...
Is the following (entirely made-up) comment good for a movie post on FF?
For even a slightly milder comment, people might argue, "But it's saying it likes the thing! How can that be wrong?" But obviously this comment sucks.
It's wrong because the right/wrong way to comment has nothing to do with the nature of your opinion. It has to be with whether you present it in a way that is respectful of the room. You can dislike things, you can hate things, you can be snarky about things, without being a shit about it.
If you feel like you're not being afforded enough leeway to hate things and say so, consider whether you ever do anything else. Can people trust you to ever say anything positive? Can they trust you to listen to their opinions if you disagree with them? If you do hate something and then people disagree with you, are you gonna at least consider what they say?
I hated Never Let Go... a lot. But once I got some snark out of my system, I also expanded on what I thought worked and didn't. And in any case, people see me try my best to enjoy movies and they know I'm not just out here taking cheap shots. It's a strong negative reaction, but from someone who still wants to talk with people.
Have I ever pissed people off? Kinda, yeah! But I didn't double down or get fighty. I just took a half step back and tried to situate how I felt about the movie in a way that was more considered and less based around a zinger.
TL;DR: are speaking as you would to friends? It's that simple.
posted by DirtyOldTown at 9:22 AM on January 8 [4 favorites]
Is the following (entirely made-up) comment good for a movie post on FF?
Look, I want to film school, so I know more than a lot of people. That's why I can tell all of you chucklefucks not smart enough to like this movie that you are stupid as hell. Read a fucking book and try and learn something and maybe watch again and see if your tiny brain can process this perfect, perfect film. Until then, please piss off forever.I don't think we would have to think very hard to all to see that this is emphatically not a good way to comment. I intentionally made it over the top just that we could avoid getting wrapped up in edge cases.
For even a slightly milder comment, people might argue, "But it's saying it likes the thing! How can that be wrong?" But obviously this comment sucks.
It's wrong because the right/wrong way to comment has nothing to do with the nature of your opinion. It has to be with whether you present it in a way that is respectful of the room. You can dislike things, you can hate things, you can be snarky about things, without being a shit about it.
If you feel like you're not being afforded enough leeway to hate things and say so, consider whether you ever do anything else. Can people trust you to ever say anything positive? Can they trust you to listen to their opinions if you disagree with them? If you do hate something and then people disagree with you, are you gonna at least consider what they say?
I hated Never Let Go... a lot. But once I got some snark out of my system, I also expanded on what I thought worked and didn't. And in any case, people see me try my best to enjoy movies and they know I'm not just out here taking cheap shots. It's a strong negative reaction, but from someone who still wants to talk with people.
Have I ever pissed people off? Kinda, yeah! But I didn't double down or get fighty. I just took a half step back and tried to situate how I felt about the movie in a way that was more considered and less based around a zinger.
TL;DR: are speaking as you would to friends? It's that simple.
posted by DirtyOldTown at 9:22 AM on January 8 [4 favorites]
I'd have to scan my past FanFare comments but I think the snarkiest I've ever been about a movie was Trap. But it was really improbably weaksauce for even M. Night Shyamalan.
posted by Kitteh at 9:26 AM on January 8 [3 favorites]
posted by Kitteh at 9:26 AM on January 8 [3 favorites]
and telling friends how much and why I didn't care for a movie is a lot of fun
posted by ginger.beef at 9:27 AM on January 8 [4 favorites]
posted by ginger.beef at 9:27 AM on January 8 [4 favorites]
But it was really improbably weaksauce for even M. Night Shyamalan.
Great, now I gotta go dig through FanFare archives so I can have an argument.
posted by mittens at 9:46 AM on January 8 [2 favorites]
Great, now I gotta go dig through FanFare archives so I can have an argument.
posted by mittens at 9:46 AM on January 8 [2 favorites]
Oh boy, then it will be a lot of MeFites to argue with because so many of us hated it. Weirdly, it has become my sister's comfort movie!
posted by Kitteh at 9:48 AM on January 8 [3 favorites]
posted by Kitteh at 9:48 AM on January 8 [3 favorites]
what on earth was that nice Hartnett boy doing hanging around with that movie?
posted by ginger.beef at 9:50 AM on January 8 [3 favorites]
posted by ginger.beef at 9:50 AM on January 8 [3 favorites]
DID YOU GUYS KNOW [eyes dart frantically from left to right, voice cracks] THAT I AM A GIFTED LIAR, SKILLED AT ACTING INCON--[dives to side to look in open door, jumps back, sweating profusely]--SPICUOUS? [gives shaky smile]
For real, though, please come by and share your opinions on that film, whatever they may be.
posted by DirtyOldTown at 9:54 AM on January 8 [3 favorites]
For real, though, please come by and share your opinions on that film, whatever they may be.
posted by DirtyOldTown at 9:54 AM on January 8 [3 favorites]
I would love to hear a perspective from someone who genuinely enjoyed Trap, how fascinating!
I genuinely enjoy a LOT of objectively bad movies, so while I can grasp this in concept I'm still surprised it could happen here unless you just REALLY LOVE soft pretzels.
posted by phunniemee at 10:21 AM on January 8 [4 favorites]
I genuinely enjoy a LOT of objectively bad movies, so while I can grasp this in concept I'm still surprised it could happen here unless you just REALLY LOVE soft pretzels.
posted by phunniemee at 10:21 AM on January 8 [4 favorites]
I had no intention of watching Trap but you hooked me with soft pretzels.
posted by ashbury at 10:30 AM on January 8 [3 favorites]
posted by ashbury at 10:30 AM on January 8 [3 favorites]
Pleased to report the soft pretzel gets several minutes of screen time.
Displeased to report one full minute of this is spent between Josh Hartnett's front teeth.
posted by phunniemee at 10:39 AM on January 8 [6 favorites]
Displeased to report one full minute of this is spent between Josh Hartnett's front teeth.
posted by phunniemee at 10:39 AM on January 8 [6 favorites]
the end shot hair tussle quick fade was well centered.
hmm
posted by clavdivs at 11:55 AM on January 8
hmm
posted by clavdivs at 11:55 AM on January 8
Here's a review of the trailer from Jezebel. The trailer! I'm not sure that there's much need to read a review of the actual movie since the review of the trailer has so much in it. Ironic. But it has the much-needed term "Josh-aissance"
posted by ashbury at 12:17 PM on January 8 [1 favorite]
posted by ashbury at 12:17 PM on January 8 [1 favorite]
Oooh, I feel I've been summoned, as complaining about FF is probably my most frequent MeTa soapboax. Fanfare's layout makes me sad and the low levels of engagement are discouraging. I watch a lot of shows and want to engage in a running discussion about them, but when I go to FF the default bombards me with a ton of shows that are old/I'm not watching/old movies. Or when I catch up with a show/film months after everyone else has watched and it doesn't seem like posting a comment will generate any interaction. Similarly, I was excited by kdrama club but the drama posts get, like, 3 comments.
So I get my fill of discussion by lurking on Primetimer, which has also slowed down but allows me to more easily search by genre/show and where the default is to have a post per episode for discussion.
posted by TwoStride at 2:26 PM on January 8 [1 favorite]
So I get my fill of discussion by lurking on Primetimer, which has also slowed down but allows me to more easily search by genre/show and where the default is to have a post per episode for discussion.
posted by TwoStride at 2:26 PM on January 8 [1 favorite]
Being an occasional fanfare user, and even more occasional commenter, I spent some time pootling around the interface. A couple of thoughts:
There's a lot of talk about seeing replies to posts much later, but I'm not sure how to check on that. Doesn't Recent Activity time out after a while
If I go to My Fanfare, a new link appears to an experimental interface from 2019 called Current and Recent, which I really like. A few iterations of user testing (maybe lengthening the lists) and this might meet a few people's requests in the thread above. Having the Recent Comments link in a tertiary nav bar that diappears in the threads themselves seems sub-optimal.
posted by Sparx at 2:40 PM on January 8
There's a lot of talk about seeing replies to posts much later, but I'm not sure how to check on that. Doesn't Recent Activity time out after a while
If I go to My Fanfare, a new link appears to an experimental interface from 2019 called Current and Recent, which I really like. A few iterations of user testing (maybe lengthening the lists) and this might meet a few people's requests in the thread above. Having the Recent Comments link in a tertiary nav bar that diappears in the threads themselves seems sub-optimal.
posted by Sparx at 2:40 PM on January 8
There's a lot of talk about seeing replies to posts much later, but I'm not sure how to check on that. Doesn't Recent Activity time out after a while
I was curious so just went and commented on an ancient 10+ year old episode of Survivor I had made a post for. It showed up in my recent activity just like anything else!
posted by phunniemee at 3:19 PM on January 8 [3 favorites]
I was curious so just went and commented on an ancient 10+ year old episode of Survivor I had made a post for. It showed up in my recent activity just like anything else!
posted by phunniemee at 3:19 PM on January 8 [3 favorites]
Thanks for checking, phunniemee. I meant more in the long tail, though. If I commented on something last year, ie, not recent enough for Recent Activity, how do I learn that someone has posted in that thread last month - would I need to add to add the show to MyFanfare or am I missing something?
posted by Sparx at 3:27 PM on January 8
posted by Sparx at 3:27 PM on January 8
I guess I don't understand what you're asking then.
For clarity, I made a comment on this thread that hadn't seen any action since October 2014. It showed up in my recent activity (https://www.metafilter.com/contribute/activity/) just the same as this comment on this thread will as soon as I click post comment. If anyone else had commented except for me, I'm certain it would have showed up just the same since I had already been active in that thread.
posted by phunniemee at 3:46 PM on January 8 [1 favorite]
For clarity, I made a comment on this thread that hadn't seen any action since October 2014. It showed up in my recent activity (https://www.metafilter.com/contribute/activity/) just the same as this comment on this thread will as soon as I click post comment. If anyone else had commented except for me, I'm certain it would have showed up just the same since I had already been active in that thread.
posted by phunniemee at 3:46 PM on January 8 [1 favorite]
Since I have no shame... Sparx, go look at your recent activity and tell me if you see a The 100 thread.
posted by phunniemee at 3:48 PM on January 8 [1 favorite]
posted by phunniemee at 3:48 PM on January 8 [1 favorite]
No - I filter for fanfare and get the following message: You have not commented on any threads in FanFare recently.
posted by Sparx at 4:54 PM on January 8
posted by Sparx at 4:54 PM on January 8
Welp! That seems like something that should go on the fix list for sure, then. I definitely want to know if someone out there starts caring about a show I cared about a decade ago, that's fun.
(I don't think I've ever noticed the filter in recent activity before?????!)
posted by phunniemee at 5:24 PM on January 8 [2 favorites]
(I don't think I've ever noticed the filter in recent activity before?????!)
posted by phunniemee at 5:24 PM on January 8 [2 favorites]
Oh, I definitely thought that comments on old Fanfare posts would show in Recent Activity, and simply assumed no one thought my handful of comments on older media were interesting enough to be worth replying to. 🤷♂️ (They may still not be interesting enough to be worth replying to, but that would explain why Fanfare feels like yelling into the void if you're not on the pulse of hot-right-now media.)
posted by brook horse at 6:18 PM on January 8 [2 favorites]
posted by brook horse at 6:18 PM on January 8 [2 favorites]
I don't know why anything would ever need to expire from recent activity at all? It didn't even occur to me that expiration would be a thing. Most threads close after a time period so un-recent themselves by default, and the ones that stay open stay open specifically so the conversation can continue in perpetuity. It's trivial to remove something from your own recent activity if you personally don't want to see it anymore.
Once frimble regrows their arms or whatever can that please go on the list? Unexpire everything from recent activity? Gracias.
posted by phunniemee at 6:30 PM on January 8
Once frimble regrows their arms or whatever can that please go on the list? Unexpire everything from recent activity? Gracias.
posted by phunniemee at 6:30 PM on January 8
Something is mixed up across our different experiences here - I just did ‘add to activity’ on that The 100 thread and it now shows in Recent activity for me. And filtering in Recent Activity definitely shows activity from threads that I ‘added to activity’ but didn’t comment in. That seems like a perfectly fine way to get visibility to new comments on old threads about shows of interest.
Unless more people are seeing the behavior observed by Sparx.
posted by janell at 6:33 PM on January 8
Unless more people are seeing the behavior observed by Sparx.
posted by janell at 6:33 PM on January 8
I don't click Add to Activity on posts I have commented on because... commenting adds it to my activity. But apparently there may be a time limit on that? If someone wants to comment on one of the older Fanfare threads in my profile activity I can see if it shows up in my recent activity.
posted by brook horse at 6:35 PM on January 8
posted by brook horse at 6:35 PM on January 8
Phunniemee, could you drop a comment in, eg West Wing, Shadow of Two Gunmen (either part). That’s a FanFare thread I haven’t touched since 2016ish - if that shows up in RA for me, it would suggest that we are NOT seeing an expiration behavior.
Another idea: perhaps we have a difference in behavior between Recent Activity and My Activity (from one’s user profile)?
posted by janell at 6:37 PM on January 8
Another idea: perhaps we have a difference in behavior between Recent Activity and My Activity (from one’s user profile)?
posted by janell at 6:37 PM on January 8
Done
posted by phunniemee at 6:43 PM on January 8
posted by phunniemee at 6:43 PM on January 8
Thanks! That isn’t showing up for me. Uh, when did Recent Activity get implemented?
posted by janell at 6:45 PM on January 8
posted by janell at 6:45 PM on January 8
Supporting the expiration behavior, the link for viewing threads you've removed from Recent Activity only shows one thread for me available to restore, from less than a month ago. I've removed far more threads from my Recent Activity than that.
posted by brook horse at 6:47 PM on January 8
posted by brook horse at 6:47 PM on January 8
In all honesty, the 'add to activity' functionality is something I'd never really noticed, so I don't know if that would do the trick, or if it also expires x months after clicking. But this does seem to indicate that a clear process to see older threads you've been involved in, particularly for fanfare threads that don't close, would be super-useful.
posted by Sparx at 7:01 PM on January 8
posted by Sparx at 7:01 PM on January 8
So I just added the Love Witch (posted in 2017) to activity and then commented. It showed up in my recent activity immediately. I know a lot of people ignore it, but I always add any post on FF I comment on to activity, which seems to circumvent the recent activity age out.
posted by miss-lapin at 8:02 PM on January 8 [1 favorite]
posted by miss-lapin at 8:02 PM on January 8 [1 favorite]
When you comment on a thread it's already added to your activity by default. There's no enhanced add to your recent activity. For example, try to add this thread to your recent activity. What I think a lot of us have only just now realized because Sparx was paying attention is that there must be some kind of timer or something working behind the scenes that expires things out of your recent activity--things that were already there before--after a period of time.
Can you imagine DOT having to go back and manually re-add 10000 posts to his recent activity every however months just to keep watch? His poor little fingers would all fall off from overwork. Black and white, slo-mo, shaking my head and pleading to the heavens: there's got to be a better way!
posted by phunniemee at 8:08 PM on January 8
Can you imagine DOT having to go back and manually re-add 10000 posts to his recent activity every however months just to keep watch? His poor little fingers would all fall off from overwork. Black and white, slo-mo, shaking my head and pleading to the heavens: there's got to be a better way!
posted by phunniemee at 8:08 PM on January 8
Based on comparing my profile to Recent Activity, I have a suspicion that it expires exactly a month after you last commented on a post (or added it to your activity), regardless of later comments. I’ll be able to test this theory tomorrow as there’s a post I predict will vanish from my Recent Activity then.
posted by brook horse at 8:21 PM on January 8
posted by brook horse at 8:21 PM on January 8
Ok so I found a post from 2018 (Hush) which I had already added to activity when it was originally posted. As I said, from the beginning, I've clicked "add to activity" for any FF post I comment on and some I've lurked. I added a new comment and it immediately popped up in my recent activity. So yes clicking on activity DOES allow you to be notified when there is a new comment even years later.
posted by miss-lapin at 8:25 PM on January 8 [1 favorite]
posted by miss-lapin at 8:25 PM on January 8 [1 favorite]
But that's your activity.
posted by phunniemee at 8:26 PM on January 8 [2 favorites]
posted by phunniemee at 8:26 PM on January 8 [2 favorites]
It's what Sparx was saying before that I didn't understand. For example: before doing anything else, do you see anything in your recent activity for Piggy?
posted by phunniemee at 8:29 PM on January 8
posted by phunniemee at 8:29 PM on January 8
I'd have to have already added that movie to my activity, which I did not. I apparently just wasted my own time and energy for no reason.
posted by miss-lapin at 8:35 PM on January 8
posted by miss-lapin at 8:35 PM on January 8
????? But that's what I'm saying. You had commented on it. Commenting on something, by default, adds it to your recent activity. You can't re-add it to your recent activity unless the invisible expiration timer has run out. Are you really going to go through every post you've ever made on fanfare every few months to re-add expired threads to your recent activity just on the off chance someone else comes along and watches that movie? No one should have to do that! They should just stay there percolating in your recent activity, so that the moment someone else comes along, anyone else who had participated in that thread in the past can see it and have the option to re-engage the conversation. As it is, someone new comes along to the Piggy thread and wants to talk about it, and you will never know.
posted by phunniemee at 8:40 PM on January 8 [2 favorites]
posted by phunniemee at 8:40 PM on January 8 [2 favorites]
You can’t click “add to activity” after you comment—that button turns into “remove from activity” because commenting functions the same as hitting the “add to activity” button. If you click “add to activity” and then comment, its just changes the timestamp of your most recent interaction with the post (which recent activity is based on), not anything about how it goes into your recent activity or how long it stays there.
posted by brook horse at 8:41 PM on January 8
posted by brook horse at 8:41 PM on January 8
I've been going through a Roland Emmerich (let's say) resurgence over the last few weeks, and I felt bad when I saw there had been comments added to old fanfare posts on those movies that I had apparently missed. I would have loved to cheer EllieBOA on when she watched Day After Tomorrow last year! When I saw those comments a few weeks ago thought I must have just missed them in recent activity, but now I know they never got shown to me at all. So poor Ellie had to watch Jake Gyllenhaal outrun temperature all by herself :( sad
posted by phunniemee at 8:44 PM on January 8 [1 favorite]
posted by phunniemee at 8:44 PM on January 8 [1 favorite]
Piggy link
@DOT you're the only other person on that thread. Next time you check in, before commenting or clicking anything in the Piggy thread, can you please see if you have new Piggy comments in your recent activity page?
posted by phunniemee at 9:19 PM on January 8 [1 favorite]
@DOT you're the only other person on that thread. Next time you check in, before commenting or clicking anything in the Piggy thread, can you please see if you have new Piggy comments in your recent activity page?
posted by phunniemee at 9:19 PM on January 8 [1 favorite]
I'm actually not seeing Piggy in my recent activity, which is wild. The Hush thread shows new stuff, but not Piggy. I would have bet cash it would.
Something is broken maybe?
posted by DirtyOldTown at 9:35 PM on January 8 [1 favorite]
Something is broken maybe?
posted by DirtyOldTown at 9:35 PM on January 8 [1 favorite]
Thanks. I think what Sparx discovered is right: threads expire from recent after a period of time. This realization actually makes me really sad about FanFare and all the people who I'm sure have tried to be late participators and have felt ignored, when really they haven't even been seen at all. Whatever expiration metric is in place really needs to be removed, and hopefully retroactively so it re-awakens all our old activity.
Hush is there for you I bet because you commented on it on Jan 2.
posted by phunniemee at 9:41 PM on January 8 [7 favorites]
Hush is there for you I bet because you commented on it on Jan 2.
posted by phunniemee at 9:41 PM on January 8 [7 favorites]
The dog finally moved off my lap which means it's bedtime for me but this is my reminder to myself to put in a contact form note in the morning for this.
posted by phunniemee at 9:44 PM on January 8 [2 favorites]
posted by phunniemee at 9:44 PM on January 8 [2 favorites]
Thanks. I think what Sparx discovered is right: threads expire from recent after a period of time. This realization actually makes me really sad about FanFare and all the people who I'm sure have tried to be late participators and have felt ignored, when really they haven't even been seen at all. Whatever expiration metric is in place really needs to be removed, and hopefully retroactively so it re-awakens all our old activity.
Repeating for emphasis!
posted by Atreides at 6:18 AM on January 9
Repeating for emphasis!
posted by Atreides at 6:18 AM on January 9
DirtyOldTown, I just added a comment to the FanFare post for "River" which you made in 2024. Am I right to infer that this, too, does not show up on your Recent Activity page? And that, when you read the metadata on that post page, just below your original post text, it says the following?
posted by DirtyOldTown (10 comments total) [remove from activity]
Which implies that you had never explicitly removed it from your Recent Activity feed.
posted by brainwane at 7:13 AM on January 9
posted by DirtyOldTown (10 comments total) [remove from activity]
Which implies that you had never explicitly removed it from your Recent Activity feed.
posted by brainwane at 7:13 AM on January 9
It actually does show up in my recent activity, which implies that either:
Can someone drop comments on the following posts so we can see what does/does not show up in my recent activity?
- there are different available for your recent activity rules if you are the OP vs. a commenter
- whatever the drops off your recent activity date is, it's longer ago than this
Can someone drop comments on the following posts so we can see what does/does not show up in my recent activity?
- Post by me, just under one year ago: Vacation
- Post by me, just over a year ago: There's Something in the Barn
- Post I did not make, but was active in and did not disable recent activity for, just under one year ago: Reacher, s02e07
- Post I did not make, but was active in and did not disable recent activity for, over one year ago: Doctor Who: The Church on Ruby Road
I just did that, but then noticed another weird thing!
I tried to make this comment just say "Done" but every time I clicked post comment it took me back up to the comment where I just said "Done" last night. I felt like I was going crazy. Repeated 3 times!
posted by phunniemee at 7:45 AM on January 9
I tried to make this comment just say "Done" but every time I clicked post comment it took me back up to the comment where I just said "Done" last night. I felt like I was going crazy. Repeated 3 times!
posted by phunniemee at 7:45 AM on January 9
All four of those showed up in my recent activity, so one year is not the cut off. When my day slows down, I will dig up four similar links so we can test two years and see if that is the threshold.
posted by DirtyOldTown at 7:48 AM on January 9
posted by DirtyOldTown at 7:48 AM on January 9
Well, I had forgotten that I had commented on that Doctor Who thread at all, but phunniemee's test comment popped that sucker right back into my recent activity.
posted by Kitteh at 7:58 AM on January 9 [1 favorite]
posted by Kitteh at 7:58 AM on January 9 [1 favorite]
Looking back, I had forgotten how fighty that one got. Oof.
posted by DirtyOldTown at 8:09 AM on January 9 [1 favorite]
posted by DirtyOldTown at 8:09 AM on January 9 [1 favorite]
I'm not working now and haven't read all this, but there is an autobot response that deletes repeated comments (this happens all across the site, but only in the same thread -- so of three exact repeated comments the last two will be auto deleted), because sometimes people's computers lag and they keep pressing submit or whatever and then we have multiples of the same comment.
Also (not reading! off duty 'til sat!) are people looking at differences between recent comments and recent activity? Sorry if you've already been through all that.
posted by taz (staff) at 8:21 AM on January 9 [1 favorite]
Also (not reading! off duty 'til sat!) are people looking at differences between recent comments and recent activity? Sorry if you've already been through all that.
posted by taz (staff) at 8:21 AM on January 9 [1 favorite]
We are noticing that FF posts that are still in our followed activity do not always reappear in our recent activity feed when new comments are made. There seems to be some kind of threshold after which this stops working, which may or may not be different for posts you followed after commenting vs. posts you made yourself.
posted by DirtyOldTown at 8:23 AM on January 9
posted by DirtyOldTown at 8:23 AM on January 9
More posts to test with new comments, this time seeing if two years is a threshold:
- Post by me, just over two years ago: The Next Karate Kid
- Post I did not make, but was active in and did not disable recent activity for, over two years ago: Oldboy (2013)
Again, don't take this as canon, but my guess is that FanFare was ported from Ask which always had a much longer live period thanMefi, and probably seemed like more than enough at that time when things were all still being developed from scratch and we had no data to work from ... and changes of some kind were made to those activity aspects, and basically no one who was working on it at the time is still around (off the top of my head! will try to check this when able!), so we can follow bread crumb trails back and try to figure it out.
posted by taz (staff) at 8:30 AM on January 9 [3 favorites]
posted by taz (staff) at 8:30 AM on January 9 [3 favorites]
(I'll stop now, because I'm probably mentioning stuff that has already been talked about, and just making people mad -- but the autobot autodelete should help to understand why the same comment was being deleted.)
posted by taz (staff) at 8:32 AM on January 9 [1 favorite]
posted by taz (staff) at 8:32 AM on January 9 [1 favorite]
If we really want to test how far back it goes, here's an Adventure Time post I made in 2014.
Here's Force Awakens from 2015.
(incidentally, for that one, both DOT and phunniemee posted, too).
posted by Atreides at 8:52 AM on January 9
Here's Force Awakens from 2015.
(incidentally, for that one, both DOT and phunniemee posted, too).
posted by Atreides at 8:52 AM on January 9
All of these are showing up on the "Recent Comments" view in Fanfare, btw.
posted by thecaddy at 9:55 AM on January 9
posted by thecaddy at 9:55 AM on January 9
K I sent a message into the contact form with a timestamp link to where we started talking about this. Fingers crossed it's fixable retroactively!
posted by phunniemee at 9:56 AM on January 9 [1 favorite]
posted by phunniemee at 9:56 AM on January 9 [1 favorite]
I've definitely had old FanFare (and Ask) threads pop up in my Recent Activity months if not years after I left my last comment. OTOH, this page showing threads currently in Recent Activity makes it seem like that pool is a lot smaller and more time-limited than that. I seem to remember talk of RA being one of the most backend-intensive aspects of the site -- cross-checking every thread participant to update them on new comments in every thread they ever commented on indefinitely could be pretty taxing depending on the architecture. Perhaps the scope of threads included was pruned at some point to cut costs? If that's the case, hopefully a new and more efficient DB will improve things.
posted by Rhaomi at 10:19 AM on January 9 [1 favorite]
posted by Rhaomi at 10:19 AM on January 9 [1 favorite]
TBH, I kind of forgot those tabs were right there. For me they just sort of blend into the background.
posted by Atreides at 10:38 AM on January 9
posted by Atreides at 10:38 AM on January 9
I see from clicking into the actual threads for The Next Karate Kid and OldBoy that phunniemee made test comments on them (thank you!) but they do not show on my personal "recent activity" alongside other stuff I am following though they definitely should.
(And for people catching up, we are testing whether new activity on old FF threads causes that new content to show in the Recent Activity as linked at the top of the page in your personal MeFi links. Theoretically, it should.)
The testing we are doing would indicate that: if a post in FF is two years old (maybe less, but certainly more than a year old) without any new activity, people following the activity on that post will not see this post reappear in their Recent Activity, even if new comments appear.
posted by DirtyOldTown at 10:53 AM on January 9 [1 favorite]
(And for people catching up, we are testing whether new activity on old FF threads causes that new content to show in the Recent Activity as linked at the top of the page in your personal MeFi links. Theoretically, it should.)
The testing we are doing would indicate that: if a post in FF is two years old (maybe less, but certainly more than a year old) without any new activity, people following the activity on that post will not see this post reappear in their Recent Activity, even if new comments appear.
posted by DirtyOldTown at 10:53 AM on January 9 [1 favorite]
I just clicked "add to activity" on Oldboy and it's now appearing in my Recent Activity, ordered by Phunniemee's most recent comment. My first guess is that the logic is something like this:
posted by thecaddy at 11:43 AM on January 9
- For each user, there's a record of posts that are tracked for the user as part of "Recent Activity." These are timestamped with the date & time of the user's last comment or when they clicked on "add to activity."
- This is probably maintained as a separate table, since you can't rely just on timestamps from the user's posts & comments.
- Posts displayed on "Recent Activity" are posts on your recent activity list that have comments within the last 30 days.
- But to improve performance, the recent activity page only considers posts on your recent activity list (via "add to activity" or a comment) within the last year that they were added.
posted by thecaddy at 11:43 AM on January 9
Two years old is still showing (based on someone watching some Ted Lasso recently). So 7 years definitely no, 2 years seems ok.
posted by janell at 11:44 AM on January 9
posted by janell at 11:44 AM on January 9
Ooooh—option three is that the site doesn’t truncate recent activity by timestamp but limits the number of posts that it’s watching—say, only the most recent 500 or 1000 by date added to the activity list.
If that’s the case someone as prolific as DOT would have a different experience with recent activity than me or janell.
posted by thecaddy at 11:54 AM on January 9 [3 favorites]
If that’s the case someone as prolific as DOT would have a different experience with recent activity than me or janell.
posted by thecaddy at 11:54 AM on January 9 [3 favorites]
I'm leaning toward the idea stuff falls off of our personal recent activity based on X amount of time (with X being maybe two years) going by without activity. My guess is that a Ted Lasso thread (being very popular) never went that long without a comment in it.
posted by DirtyOldTown at 12:27 PM on January 9 [2 favorites]
posted by DirtyOldTown at 12:27 PM on January 9 [2 favorites]
We could test with Simpsons Roasting on an Open Fire: you and I both commented on Dec. 17, 2022, and the last comment was ten days later. Someone else would need to comment on it, but if I saw the comment and you didn't we'd probably get a good answer.
Or we could wait to hear something back from the mods. I'll be honest, finding the reproduction steps for this bug is more fun than the bugs I should be working on, and I'm more than happy to walk away from this for a while if people are over it.
posted by thecaddy at 1:40 PM on January 9 [1 favorite]
Or we could wait to hear something back from the mods. I'll be honest, finding the reproduction steps for this bug is more fun than the bugs I should be working on, and I'm more than happy to walk away from this for a while if people are over it.
posted by thecaddy at 1:40 PM on January 9 [1 favorite]
We could test that and then also test threads that are two years + old but have semi-regular activity since.
posted by DirtyOldTown at 1:46 PM on January 9
posted by DirtyOldTown at 1:46 PM on January 9
OK, so the multiple "seed comment" comments are getting a bit annoying about pinging old threads back into my Recent Activity.
posted by We had a deal, Kyle at 2:48 PM on January 9
posted by We had a deal, Kyle at 2:48 PM on January 9
Sorry, if you have a better way to test I'd be happy to do that instead.
posted by phunniemee at 3:03 PM on January 9
posted by phunniemee at 3:03 PM on January 9
I think we’ve probably got enough data to help the devs and mods figure this out from here, so we should be good. We’re really at a point that someone needs to review the code or SQL queries to understand what’s happening.
I did not get the Simpsons episode added to my feed, FWIW.
WHADKyle, if you’re willing, can you let us know the oldest thread that popped into your recent activity?
posted by thecaddy at 3:16 PM on January 9
I did not get the Simpsons episode added to my feed, FWIW.
WHADKyle, if you’re willing, can you let us know the oldest thread that popped into your recent activity?
posted by thecaddy at 3:16 PM on January 9
Sure! it was Simpsons Roasting.
posted by We had a deal, Kyle at 3:37 PM on January 9 [1 favorite]
posted by We had a deal, Kyle at 3:37 PM on January 9 [1 favorite]
The Simpsons one did not reappear in mine.
posted by DirtyOldTown at 3:43 PM on January 9
posted by DirtyOldTown at 3:43 PM on January 9
Mod note: I think we’ve probably got enough data to help the devs and mods figure this out from here, so we should be good. We’re really at a point that someone needs to review the code or SQL queries to understand what’s happening.
Thank you everyone for taking initiative and time to test this! It was fantastic display of the community working together to get something done to make the site better and you should be hella proud of yourselves for the work you did!
I'll put this thread and info on frimble's "desk" so they can take a look at things when they're able.
Again, thank you so very much!
posted by Brandon Blatcher (staff) at 8:29 PM on January 9 [4 favorites]
Thank you everyone for taking initiative and time to test this! It was fantastic display of the community working together to get something done to make the site better and you should be hella proud of yourselves for the work you did!
I'll put this thread and info on frimble's "desk" so they can take a look at things when they're able.
Again, thank you so very much!
posted by Brandon Blatcher (staff) at 8:29 PM on January 9 [4 favorites]
I saw Recent Activity updates in The Love Witch (April 18, 2017) and The Force Awakens (December 17, 2015).
But speaking as a developer, I'd try to minimize your expectations for how well Recent Activity will work in the new site, if it exists at all.
This is the kind of thing that has the potential to be a big performance problem, consuming a lot of server resources. To do it efficiently can take quite a lot of work in the code.
It would not be that surprising if there are limits on how many threads can be made available, or how old they can be, or if it just stops working reliably once you have too many.
posted by TheophileEscargot at 6:39 AM on January 10 [1 favorite]
But speaking as a developer, I'd try to minimize your expectations for how well Recent Activity will work in the new site, if it exists at all.
This is the kind of thing that has the potential to be a big performance problem, consuming a lot of server resources. To do it efficiently can take quite a lot of work in the code.
It would not be that surprising if there are limits on how many threads can be made available, or how old they can be, or if it just stops working reliably once you have too many.
posted by TheophileEscargot at 6:39 AM on January 10 [1 favorite]
Disagree. Recent Activity is part of the minimum viable feature set. In 2025 no one is going back to manually checking threads for replies. Yes it can be complex and yes there might be slight behavioural changes but if Matt and pb could get it working in ColdFusion over a decade ago it shouldn't be any harder in modern database engines and web frameworks. Performance shouldn't be an issue with modern servers (fast) and modern numbers of comments (tiny).
posted by Klipspringer at 9:30 AM on January 10 [3 favorites]
posted by Klipspringer at 9:30 AM on January 10 [3 favorites]
You know what I just thought might be a good post on Fanfare....is someone taking one for the team and making a post about DickShark.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 11:21 AM on January 10
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 11:21 AM on January 10
Yeah, recent activity is trivial. There’s basically no data here.
posted by bowbeacon at 12:47 PM on January 10
posted by bowbeacon at 12:47 PM on January 10
And it is only an issue for the ever-open Fanfare use case.
posted by janell at 12:50 PM on January 10
posted by janell at 12:50 PM on January 10
and what did I get today in the mail, Nielsen
questionnaire with a $1 bill.
posted by clavdivs at 1:01 PM on January 10 [3 favorites]
questionnaire with a $1 bill.
posted by clavdivs at 1:01 PM on January 10 [3 favorites]
Yeah, recent activity is trivial. There’s basically no data here.
I do remember reading a comment from back in the day that it is kind of a resource hog. There may not be a ton of results for the average user, but the query was memory or processor intensive. It would have made sense at the time to limit the results to the longest timespan a post could be open, especially if that was before the policy of follow-ups being possible via a note to the mods. I am sure kirk took Recent Activity type queries into account with the new db design.
posted by soelo at 1:53 PM on January 10
I do remember reading a comment from back in the day that it is kind of a resource hog. There may not be a ton of results for the average user, but the query was memory or processor intensive. It would have made sense at the time to limit the results to the longest timespan a post could be open, especially if that was before the policy of follow-ups being possible via a note to the mods. I am sure kirk took Recent Activity type queries into account with the new db design.
posted by soelo at 1:53 PM on January 10
Recent Activity launched in 2006. Any server resource concerns should now be outdated. Not necessarily trivial to code and test tho.
posted by Klipspringer at 2:21 PM on January 10 [1 favorite]
posted by Klipspringer at 2:21 PM on January 10 [1 favorite]
Wow I’m so confused by what yall are seeing with your Recent Activity. Every FF thread that I have either commented on, posted myself, or added to activity will show up if something new happens. I use Recent Activity a lot and so I see and enjoy reading late comments. I get a little kick when someone reactivates a thread that’s old, even if I don’t have anything to say back. I want all y’all’s opinions!
I did a full Buffy watch last year and randomly made comments on threads that were 5 years old. They are in my recent activity. Just now I checked and there’s a comment on The Girl with All the Gifts from a few hours ago in my Recent Activity, with the previous comment being from 2019.
Are you sure yall are using Recent Activity correctly? Any thread you want to see in Recent Activity, has to be added to Recent Activity. Commenting or creating a post automatically adds it to your Recent Activity. I’m talking about the Recent Activity link in the header in the same row as “New Post”. Because FF threads don’t close, they always have the potential to show up in recent activity. Normal posts in the blue close after 30 days, so eventually they fall back in the recent activity because there can’t be any new activity.
posted by LizBoBiz at 2:38 PM on January 10
I did a full Buffy watch last year and randomly made comments on threads that were 5 years old. They are in my recent activity. Just now I checked and there’s a comment on The Girl with All the Gifts from a few hours ago in my Recent Activity, with the previous comment being from 2019.
Are you sure yall are using Recent Activity correctly? Any thread you want to see in Recent Activity, has to be added to Recent Activity. Commenting or creating a post automatically adds it to your Recent Activity. I’m talking about the Recent Activity link in the header in the same row as “New Post”. Because FF threads don’t close, they always have the potential to show up in recent activity. Normal posts in the blue close after 30 days, so eventually they fall back in the recent activity because there can’t be any new activity.
posted by LizBoBiz at 2:38 PM on January 10
LizBoBiz, you got anything in your recent activity for Mrs Doubtfire?
posted by phunniemee at 2:52 PM on January 10
posted by phunniemee at 2:52 PM on January 10
If you do, then I'm leaning toward thecaddy's theory about total number of active posts that's limiting this, more than a time period.
posted by phunniemee at 2:54 PM on January 10 [1 favorite]
posted by phunniemee at 2:54 PM on January 10 [1 favorite]
Not necessarily trivial to code and test tho.
I mean, it’s one sql query with about 3 joins. To the extent that any software is trivial, this is pretty much it.
posted by bowbeacon at 3:53 PM on January 10 [2 favorites]
I mean, it’s one sql query with about 3 joins. To the extent that any software is trivial, this is pretty much it.
posted by bowbeacon at 3:53 PM on January 10 [2 favorites]
My current theory—based on Kyle seeing Simpsons Roasting On An Open Fire and TheophileEscargot seeing the Love Witch, but neither of them having commented on those threads—is that the current query is set up so that if you click “add to activity”, that thread is permanently added. But it only looks back a set period of time at your own comments. (TE did comment on Force Awakens, but long enough after it started that it’s possible he hit add to activity before he commented.)
So there could be a performance hit from expanding the number of threads that need to be checked if the query is set up to be accidentally quadratic or something, but that’s unlikely and wouldn’t be too hard to fix anyway.
posted by thecaddy at 9:40 AM on January 11 [2 favorites]
So there could be a performance hit from expanding the number of threads that need to be checked if the query is set up to be accidentally quadratic or something, but that’s unlikely and wouldn’t be too hard to fix anyway.
posted by thecaddy at 9:40 AM on January 11 [2 favorites]
Speaking for myself, I post to FanFare a lot less than I used to, because people can't help themselves from talking about other media (spoilers etc) in 'Show Only' tagged posts.
posted by destructive cactus at 8:07 AM on January 13
posted by destructive cactus at 8:07 AM on January 13
Awesome, DOT!
posted by Atreides at 10:42 AM on January 13 [1 favorite]
posted by Atreides at 10:42 AM on January 13 [1 favorite]
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posted by taz (staff) at 10:27 PM on January 4 [17 favorites]