Two accounts?

June 6, 2005 1:08 PM

Pony time. Every time I ask a question on Ask...I have a need to ask another one (before my 7 days are up.) I could get a second account...now I'd have two logins, etc. [MI]
posted by filmgeek to Feature Requests at 1:08 PM (29 comments total)

And I'm addicted to the green. And I'm afraid of it's scroll rate. The action of having the limit inherently makes the value higher of the Green's Worth. Too many Questions and you lose readers/potential answerers.

Look, I understand the economics of control here...

Ask MeFi (and surprisingly the IRC side) has become my new drug habits (over the blue). I just find myself wanting a second question each week...Suggestions? Solutions? Of course, I like having all my questions on my one page to boot.
posted by filmgeek at 1:14 PM on June 6, 2005

Give people the ability to buy a second question within a week for $5, which is pretty much what the second login option does now.
posted by weston at 1:19 PM on June 6, 2005

Not everybody uses their 1 question/week and some people need more than one question. Here we have a textbook case of resource allocation inefficiency. It'd make sense for people who don't use their question for a 7 day period to be able to sell their question to another person. In return, the seller might get the option to buy 100 + X% of a question from the buyer in the future where the percentage point determines the length of the options contract. Then we could have a few firms that build huge amounts of options on questions that would essentially establish a centralized marketplace ensuring most everybody can get a question when they need it. They might even speculate upon world events that would trigger a rise in the demand for questions during a given time and therefore raise their returns. This would work, of course, until it was revealed that mathowie was greedily trading on the inside and the entire market would collapse in scandal and shame.
posted by nixerman at 1:24 PM on June 6, 2005

Well, We know matt is working on MefiPro.

A roadmap of that implementation would be nice. Also what sort of pricing. I'd pay today.

Nixer, right now, I can pay $5 and have that second question (or $45 and have ten questions a week.) I have two/three mefi friends who would absolutely let me use my question on their account.
posted by filmgeek at 1:30 PM on June 6, 2005

I like the thought of having multiple logins.
Some people here play the Devil's Advocate quite a lot, and having a Jekyl login, as well as a Hyde login, they could argue with themselves all day!
posted by Balisong at 1:33 PM on June 6, 2005

Just buy another login. You can be film-geek, notfilmgeek, fi1mgeek, or some snarktastic new name. As soon as you buy the new name, your desire to post questions will vanish. It's a well-known fact.
posted by theora55 at 1:34 PM on June 6, 2005

filmgeek posted "now I'd have two logins, etc. [MI]"

Heather has Two Logins.

But Betty has three, so Betty makes more in porn industry.

Because Betty is able to have [MI].
posted by orthogonality at 1:37 PM on June 6, 2005

Balisong : "Some people here play the Devil's Advocate quite a lot, and having a Jekyl login, as well as a Hyde login, they could argue with themselves all day!"

You're looking at me, aren't you.
posted by Bugbread at 1:37 PM on June 6, 2005

filmgeek writes "Well, We know matt is working on MefiPro."

We do? From where do we know it?
posted by OmieWise at 1:55 PM on June 6, 2005

I've heard this song so many times and it's easy to sing along with, but I still don't like it. What's on the b-side?
posted by Slack-a-gogo at 2:34 PM on June 6, 2005

Well, We know matt is working on MefiPro.

I'm working on raising a child. I'm paying someone to try and fix MeFi, but though I had grand plans of doing all sorts of new features, getting the server to stay alive is priority number 1 for now. If I can get the site stable and zippy, then I guess mefi pro could follow.

But for asking more questions, I guess just break down and get another account. Remember though, the more questions you ask, the more you make the page scroll and the less useful it becomes for everyone. It's a tragedy of the commons and why I put a limit in place.
posted by mathowie (staff) at 2:39 PM on June 6, 2005

Too many Questions and you lose readers/potential answerers.

and some people need more than one question.

I could get a second account...now I'd have two

Here we have a textbook case of resource allocation inefficiency.

List of Questions:
Why many new MF users only have posts & comments in the green?

on the internet, What is #2’s “?” before #3’s Profit?

PS, now I see why “google is your friend” is a widely used phrased; because I said it w/o its use for finding the possibile answers.
posted by thomcatspike at 2:49 PM on June 6, 2005

"then i guess mefi pro could follow". that doesn't sound too promising.
posted by puke & cry at 2:54 PM on June 6, 2005

well, it's a lower priority than rebooting the server six times a day, or completely recoding it from the ground up in something else.
posted by mathowie (staff) at 3:25 PM on June 6, 2005

Actualy, what I'd really love to see is fewer questions total, but the ability to post a second question after the first if something comes up.

I keep holding off asking a question because I always thinkg "what if I need to ask something else later?" and then I never do.

Something like two questions per month (just check to make sure one month has passed since the question before last, rather then a week since the last).

but, whatever.
posted by delmoi at 4:24 PM on June 6, 2005

Mathowie, I'm curious - hasn't some industrious coder(s) out there offered to help fix these things? I recall you were trying to contact someone at Macromedia (regarding coldfusion). I used to be a Macromedia Trainer, I know some pretty serious trainers for it..who in turn know people at macromedia, can any of this knowledge be of help?
posted by filmgeek at 4:36 PM on June 6, 2005

But for asking more questions, I guess just break down and get another account.
You realise that you have just given official approval for sock puppet accounts, don't you? I doubt that was your intention, but many will see it that way if they choose to.
posted by dg at 4:40 PM on June 6, 2005

mathowie: But for asking more questions, I guess just break down and get another account.

Huh. I'm surprised that #1 is publicly condoning having a second account. I knew they were more-or-less silently allowed to exist, these sockpuppets, but this strikes me as odd. I suppose it could be because of the $5, though that seems negligible, and I suppose it could be because enforcement of a one-account-only rule would be impossible, but I wonder if the true reason is that mathowie has a puppet account himself and that mathowie is not a hypocrite.
posted by nobody at 4:52 PM on June 6, 2005

I brought it up suggestively in earlier threads, but I'll just go flat out and (explicitly) ask:

Matt, would you be OK (and implement it) if a collective of Mefites went and rewrote Mefi codebase? You could, of course, pose requirements and conditions. This would be a volunteer effort.

The reason I ask is, that unless your your stance is known, no one will deign to start such an initiative. I don't have polished coding skills, but I can volunteer with documentation and UI design and simpler coding tasks. Given Mefi's audience, I'm sure we can easily find 10-12 coders, if not more, willing to devote a few hours a week, for ?3-5? weeks to spill out something usable.
posted by Gyan at 4:52 PM on June 6, 2005

Gyan, that's my thoughts exactly.

I understand the 'lifestyle' that matt has (too many items on his plate).

PVR blog, Metafilter, his two (three?) personal projects.

Oh, yeah, he has a job too.

Bonus, a little blob of joy.

Too bad I'm not a coder. Generally speaking, volunteer initiatives have to work like this:

One person is a champion...they drive the project. And others come on board as they choose to commit.
posted by filmgeek at 5:05 PM on June 6, 2005

I'm surprised that #1 is publicly condoning having a second account

I'm just saying that I'm not changing the limit anytime soon, nor would I have a $1 extra question option. I also added how extra accounts for second questions undermines the purpose of the ask mefi limits for personal selfishness, but maybe I wasn't clear enough about that.

I'm not condoning it, just saying that after umpteen posts asking me to change the limits, the only option is a second account at this point, but keep in mind that degrades the site by the folks selfishly doing this.
posted by mathowie (staff) at 5:15 PM on June 6, 2005

Actually, I think the server might be doing better after a change today. Let's see how things pan out this week. I won't go to the point of rewriting the site until I'm clear out of options, and if/when I do, I will be hiring people and paying for the code instead of having it be a volunteer project, as time is of the essence.
posted by mathowie (staff) at 5:16 PM on June 6, 2005

Some people here play the Devil's Advocate quite a lot

Who?? Who would do such a thing??! I demand they be brought to justice!
posted by DevilsAdvocate at 10:17 PM on June 6, 2005

What about a feature suggestion of a question queue? You could post as many questions as you like but they'd only get released one a week. You could also rearrange the queue etc to move questions up and down the list depending on your need for the answers.
posted by clgregor at 9:29 AM on June 7, 2005

Here's a really ugly temporary solution: what if someone (I could do this if I could free up a couple of hours) created a site where anyone could post questions -- JUST questions? It could be called askmequeue.com or something like that.

Then volunteers from here could browse that site and, if they themselves didn't have a question that week, they could post someone else's (and check off that question as having-been-posted). In the AskMe post, they could cite the original author:

[filmgeek from askmeQ] where can I buy good porn in NYC?

Though I am posting this suggestion, I find it clunky and ugly -- but it still might work until (if) Matt decides to make a change.

For what it's worth -- though Matt's against it -- I like the 1 free question a week with additional questions $5. AskMe has become a really valuable resource. It sucks to ask your one question about something fun -- like book suggestions -- and then find the next day that you desperately need answers to a critical question (cat peed on my bed!).
posted by grumblebee at 9:44 AM on June 7, 2005

AskMe has become a really valuable resource

Thought this place was of collective minds, yet askme collects the minds. Think the ideas above are bad, as they would make the askme site a profit driven place for members like an e-bay site. This would be worse than self-posting, imho.

find the next day that you desperately need answers to a critical question (cat peed on my bed!).
That's a critical question? Man, I’ve been waiting a month to ask my question, how a family on those TV shows are able to afford the charitable gift of a large home being donated to them. Because they’re on a fixed income which seems limited at the homes upkeep, utilities, taxes & ect? Though I’ve only been waiting this long for the posts to slow down.
posted by thomcatspike at 10:28 AM on June 7, 2005

I see 3 easy solutions

First, if you are addicted to the green then ask your extra question nonchalantly by way of comment in a related thread, once the population has had a reasonable stab at the poster's original question of course.

Second, email someone and ask them (I don't know that making it genuinely commercial is a good idea) to post the question on your behalf. I'd be happy to do it (unless I thought it was superfluous, but I'd let you argue your point).

Third, look out there on the web. There's a bunch of forums and more often than not there are absolutely specific forums for specific questions. Sometimes it's a better (if not the only) solution anyway.

I really don't like sockpuppets. I prefer people stay under the one moniker. It sometimes promotes people taking responsibility for what's posted above their name.
posted by peacay at 11:43 AM on June 7, 2005

clgregor writes "What about a feature suggestion of a question queue? You could post as many questions as you like but they'd only get released one a week."

Bad if the questions get posted automatically. Otherwise some one could join up, add a couple dozen questions to the queue and then never come back. Wasting time and front page space.

thomcatspike writes "Because they’re on a fixed income which seems limited at the homes upkeep, utilities, taxes & ect? Though I’ve only been waiting this long for the posts to slow down."

This has been disscussed here before try searching the site if you haven't. The gist is a combination of some law weasling where the show rents/leases the property for the week and upgrades the property during their lease (very common in commercial settings); and just giving the family enough cash to cover the taxes plus the taxes on the cash.
posted by Mitheral at 2:02 PM on June 7, 2005

How many people end up not asking any questions because they don't want to blow their wad on something that's driving them crazy since something actually critical might come up? I find this happens to me all the time, and of course, just this week, the day after I did ask a question, I pretty desperately wanted to ask another. Aargh.

One question per week plus one 'bonus' per calendar month. That's the only pony I want.

Oh, and a text entry box on every page for doing blue/green/gray searches. Wouldn't that save some bandwidth? Would it be noticeable?
posted by kimota at 8:27 PM on June 8, 2005