MetaChat - Um... Weird MeCha+Firefox incident:

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21 September 2006

Um... Weird MeCha+Firefox incident: →[More:]

I'm cleaning out my bookmark files. There's bookmark folder called "Metachat." I think, "Hmm, I don't remember creating that. I must have bookmarked interesting threads."

I open the folder and it contains a bookmark for every thread posted in past three days. Listed alphabetically. Including threads I never commented in or even read.

What the hell is up with that? It's not problematic so much as it is, uh, a little creepy.

post by: mudpuppie at: 13:16 | 11 comments

Your browser has become sentient, adopted your taste through diffusion from your history folder and decided to read all of metachat for itself?

posted by sciurus 21 September | 13:20

So what's the url in the bookmark?

posted by orthogonality 21 September | 13:21

It's probbaly going to some admin pHP page that does a select ... where posted_date + interval '3 day' > now()

posted by orthogonality 21 September | 13:22

It's not one bookmark, ortho. It's 60+. One for every post that's been made in the past few days. (Maybe one for every post that's currently on the front page?)

If it's going to some PHP admin page, wouldn't other people have the same bookmarks? I don't have access to the mecha admin stuff.

posted by mudpuppie 21 September | 13:27

Yeah, but if you click the bookmark, what is the address you see in your browser's address bar?

posted by orthogonality 21 September | 15:40

I see the address of the Metachat thread.

posted by mudpuppie 21 September | 15:44

It sounds like you've got a Live Bookmark there. It reads the RSS feed from the site (containing all of the threads in the last few days, whether you read them or not. Each thread will get its own "bookmark" within the Live Bookmark folder, and everything in the folder will be automatically updated periodically.

posted by DoomGerbil 21 September | 16:41

Ya my vote is for live bookmark as well. They are really awesome btw, I have one for mechas delicious links.

posted by freudianslipper 21 September | 17:09

That makes sense. Thanks.

posted by mudpuppie 21 September | 17:25

Can I just say that doomgerbil is the best username EVAR?

posted by mygothlaundry 21 September | 18:17

Look up at your location bar, where it says "http://metachat.org/index.php/2006/09/21/p15466", i.e. this thread. Over on the right is an orange thingamabob that looks like a broadcast symbol. If you right click on that, you will have three possible choices to make a live bookmark, representing three different standards for XML syndication (RSS1, RSS2, Atom). If you create it you should get identical results to what you are now seeing.

(That orange thingamabob used to be located on the status bar in earlier Firefoxes.)

posted by stilicho 21 September | 22:32

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