Ask MetaFilter questions tagged with metatalk

Why can't I post to Metafilter while at work?

docpops — Tue, 14 Dec 2004 18:33:36 -0800

I'm not able to post while at work. Do I need to log out at my home computer first? Also, I can't access MeTa or AskMe. I use same versions of Firefox at both locations, both accept cookies. Thanks.

Trouble Logging on to Metafilter

doctordendrite — Sat, 27 Nov 2004 20:30:26 -0800

Problems with metafilter.

For some reason, I can log into the ask metafilter section but cannot log into the standard metafilter site.

Even after clearing cookies, history, cache... when I login I just get the metafilter site presented to me as if I was not logged in... If I intentionally enter the wrong password I am told that I have errored, but cannot log into metafilter.

This happens using Firefox and IE6. I've even tried computers at friends houses and the same thing happens.

Is this because I close the browser without logging out?

I've never had this happen on another site.

How do you quote people here?

fairmettle — Sat, 20 Nov 2004 05:59:02 -0800

Newbie Question: How the in the world do you quote someone - or at least how can you use italics in posting here? Thanx in advance...

MetaFilter Bannings

fenriq — Fri, 22 Oct 2004 23:40:51 -0800

How many members of MetaFilter have been ex-communicated?

Either short term or permanently? Or is this more MetaTalk?

Mefi tribute

solistrato — Sat, 11 Sep 2004 00:07:59 -0800

A while ago, on my old site, I posted this parody of MeFi. (It was subsequently, um, noticed. Yeah, sorry about that.) I thought a fitting tribute would be to post it to my user page. As is plainly obvious, tis fux0red for I am not l33t. Or else, there's some sort of cotton-pickin' interference, as the anchor tags seem to be all kerfluuey. Help, pwease?

Help me write a script that could search the Mefi database and load results into SQL/MT database

dg — Mon, 19 Jul 2004 05:45:10 -0800

I want to update the MetaFilter: The Taglines page, but really really don't feel like doing it the hard way again. It occured to me that it would probably be easy to write a script to search the database for me and load the relevant bits into the database that holds the taglines page (SQL/MT). There is only one problem with that: I have no idea how to go about this. [more inside] Originally, I did this by searching for strings like MetaFilter: and a few variants, then pasting various items into the right places, which is slow and tedious. It seems that it would be simple for a script to look for specific strings, then collect the relevant data around the string and put each bit in the proper field in the database. This brings a couple of questions:

1. Is this possible?
2. If it is not possible to automate the export of the data to the MT site database, is it possible to export it to (for example) a text file, which would mean manually importing the data, but would eliminate the tedious searching?
3. If it is possible, would someone like to write it for me? I could pay a small amount in return, or perhaps provide some hosting or something.

I guess it would need two variants of the script - one to go back to where I left off doing things manually and bring it up to date, then one that would be run regularly (cron job perhaps?) that would create the MT posts and leave the post status as draft so that they could be checked manually.

It doesn's sound too hard, but I am aware that seemingly simple things are often the hardest. Any suggestions would be welcome.

Where do you share links that you like, but don't think deserve a front page post?

FunkyHelix — Sun, 27 Jun 2004 15:15:54 -0800

Where do you share links that you like, but don't think deserve a front page post? Like while this looks interesting to me, I'm not sure it's techy/cool/best of the web enough to go up as a post. Yet the link doesn't fit the feel of my own blog, and I still want to share it. Anyone know of sites for links that aren't FPP, but still sort of neat? (Also, the spell check seems to be hanging, so I'm posting this hoping nothing is too wrong.)

How to do automated text searches?

troutfishing — Tue, 03 Feb 2004 09:11:08 -0800

Metafilter, as a source to journalists for story ideas and also as a reservoir of good writing for plagiarists, has been discussed on a recent Metatalk thread. How could I acquire a script (I don't have much of a clue about this, technically), for my Mac (OS 9.2.2 and OS 10.2.8) to run automated searches looking for matchups on chunks of text from my 500 (or whatever it is) pages of Metafilter commentary ? (more inside)

MetaTalk/Blogroots - killing the conversation

adam — Tue, 09 Dec 2003 12:46:08 -0800

Why did closing off weblog-related MetaTalk content and moving to the dedicated Blogroots seem to kill the conversation? [more inside] There used to be a thread every day or two, with dozens of comments related to weblog inside baseball on MetaTalk. Blogroots gets an update maybe twice a month, with 2 or 3 comments tops.

Does this reflect people's waning interest in the meta-weblog issues, or is it related to the site change? Or has the weblog-related-talk just migrated to people's individual blogs?