When a poster replies to his own post, would it be possible to mark it as such?

July 22, 2005 10:25 AM

A suggestion to improve Metafilter: When a poster replies to his own post, would it be possible to mark it as such, such as starting out the post with "Poster: ", or maybe each poster could do this manually to make the thread more readable. Just an idea.
posted by cincidog to Feature Requests at 10:25 AM (23 comments total)

Forget it.
posted by mischief at 10:34 AM on July 22, 2005

I think I get the idea behind this, but... nah.

Those of us who want to keep track of when the original poster is commenting in the thread can easily do so by noting the name at the top of the page. For others, this would be an unnecessary and ugly distraction.
posted by soyjoy at 10:46 AM on July 22, 2005

This sounds like it would be something better done as a greasemonkey extension than built into the site code.
posted by jessamyn at 10:53 AM on July 22, 2005

Why should the poster have any more or less prominence in the thread than anyone else?
posted by caddis at 11:10 AM on July 22, 2005

NOT POSTER : Yeah, jessamyn is right. Tiny GM script is the way to go.
posted by Plutor at 11:11 AM on July 22, 2005

I can see it being vaguely useful on AskMe.
posted by smackfu at 11:19 AM on July 22, 2005

I dunno, though. In AskMe, more than anywhere else, I'm particularly careful to note the name of the person posting the question.
posted by Bugbread at 11:23 AM on July 22, 2005

Why is that an "I dunno?" Don't you carefully doublecheck the name of the poster for this very reason (possibly among others)?
posted by scarabic at 11:30 AM on July 22, 2005

There should certainly be guidelines or etiquette about quoting others' comments in a response of your own, including the main poster in response to his or her own post.
posted by Rothko at 11:42 AM on July 22, 2005

scarabic : "Why is that an 'I dunno?'"

I meant "I dunno that it would be so useful for AskMe, as I pay a lot of attention to the poster, so it seems that putting 'Poster' wouldn't serve much purpose. However, I can't vouch for everyone else, so I can't say that it wouldn't be useless, just that I doubt that it would be too useful, hence the waffling 'I disagree but not vehemently' phrase 'I dunno'".

I was trying to curb my excess verbiage, but it doesn't look like I have the knack of handling brevity correctly.
posted by Bugbread at 11:45 AM on July 22, 2005

Poster: See? now,without having to memorize my screen name at the beginning, you automatically knew that the original poster is writing this. And yes, I agree that this would work best in the GREEN.
posted by cincidog at 12:52 PM on July 22, 2005

Well, written that way it looks like you're talking to a user named "Poster".
posted by DrJohnEvans at 12:59 PM on July 22, 2005

Creator: Well, then please come up with a better, more descriptive word, that is fine. I never said I was CREATIVE, just full of stupid ideas.
posted by cincidog at 1:00 PM on July 22, 2005

DrJohnEvans : "Well, written that way it looks like you're talking to a user named 'Poster'."

I misread it that way too.
posted by Bugbread at 1:01 PM on July 22, 2005

[this is not a good idea]
posted by grouse at 1:12 PM on July 22, 2005

I also wondered who "Poster" was when I first saw that comment.
posted by soyjoy at 1:16 PM on July 22, 2005

Creator: "Our father, who art in ..."
posted by mischief at 1:30 PM on July 22, 2005

Or the color could be a little different for the poster's name.
posted by redsparkler at 5:05 PM on July 22, 2005

At least in AskMe, I think it's a good idea.

Questions are often clarified after prompting by other users -- and highlighting those clarifications would help refine later answers. I agree, it would be useful. There's another school of thought that says, since MeFi is a discussion site, your "ownership" of a question ends when you click POST -- but I think your idea would lead to better, more intelligent discussions.
posted by cribcage at 9:29 PM on July 22, 2005

Yes, good idea for AskMe, not so much for FPPs.
posted by -harlequin- at 11:45 PM on July 22, 2005

good idea, odinsdream. if a change is necessary at all.
posted by dreamsign at 12:29 PM on July 23, 2005

Yes, I've always wanted something like this! As said above, often in AskMe, the original poster adds more detail; it would be nice to distinctly identify the original poster in some way. I think I like the underlined username method the best, so far.
posted by Sonic_Molson at 7:53 PM on July 23, 2005

Doesn't the poster usually sort of stand out insofar as they say things like:

"well, I guess the question I meant to ask was not so much how do I get the hamster out as it was with how much lubrication should I consider it prepped?"

With the exception of occasional (and usually very easy-to-follow) crosstalk in an AskMe thread, the poster is usually the only person responding in-thread in that sort of vein, and I can't recall ever having blinked in confusion because of the problem this proposal hopes to solve.

I think the GM script is the proper solution.
posted by cortex at 11:37 AM on July 24, 2005