[AMA] I am /u/avapoet, creator of MegaMegaMonitor, cartographer of the MegaLounges, and general hacker-geek. AMA.

This self-post was originally posted to /r/Askreddit_MegaLounge. See more things from Dan's Reddit account.

I was asked to do an AMA here, so… here I am! If you know me already, it’s probably because you use MegaMegaMonitor [install here], a browser plugin I made that helps you to see where you are relative to others in the MegaLounges as well as in a variety of other private subreddits. You’ve probably seen the link in the sidebar of /r/askreddit_megalounge, right?

Recently, I’ve been adding features to help moderators of private subreddits to manage their membership, and I’m always open to suggestions for future features. MegaMegaMonitor’s not been without its controversies, though: and I’m happy to tell you about them, if you’re interested.

 

I’m a believer in the AMA concept, though (and I’m not sure how much I can really say about MegaMegaMonitor: it speaks for itself, doesn’t it?), so here’s some other things that people often ask me about on Reddit or elsewhere, in case that’s what you wanted to know about:

  • I can pretty-much guarantee that I’ve got the shortest name of anybody you’ve ever met.
  • I live in Oxford, UK, where I run the websites of the libraries of the University of Oxford.
  • I also do freelance web application development and I help run a non-profit that makes software for charities.
  • I’m in a slightly-unusual romantic relationship, in that my partner is married to somebody other than me, and we all live together.
  • I’ve been blogging since the 1990s, and have never (deliberately) deleted a post.
  • I’m a keen geocacher and a magician-in-training.

So – what can I tell you about MegaMegaMonitor, me, or anything else? I’m all yours from now until I go to bed (and I’ll be back online in the morning, so anything I miss I’ll pick up then)!


Edit (23:47 BST / 22:47 UTC): I’m going to bed, but I’m still answering questions (I’m taking my phone, so they’ll be shorter replies, and only until I fall asleep), and then I’ll check in again tomorrow morning. Thanks for the lovely words, guys!

Edit2: Tuesday morning. Back at my desk; working from home today so if you still want me, I’m all yours. I’m hoping to release a new version of MegaMegaMonitor this afternoon.

MegaMegaMonitor v104 released – minor improvement to “lists”

This self-post was originally posted to /r/MegaMegaMonitor. See more things from Dan's Reddit account.

Tiny new release with thanks to /u/greypo for highlighting the need for it. In v102, bulk-inviting people to a subreddit would fall over and stop if it came to somebody who was banned from that subreddit, requiring the user to manually remove their name from the list before they could continue. In v104, instead, it treats them the same as if their username was invalid: it logs the reason that it failed to invite them, but then carries on with the rest of the list.

tl;dr: if you didn’t know you needed this feature, you don’t.

 

 

[from /u/avapoet’s blog] Squiz CMS Easter Eggs (or: why do I keep seeing Greg’s name in my CAPTCHA?)

This link was originally posted to /r/MegaLoungeAvapoet. See more things from Dan's Reddit account.

The original link was: https://danq.me/2015/03/27/squiz-captcha/

If there’s one place on Reddit that this kind of self-promotion shouldn’t be considered inappropriate, it’d be in the subreddit that carries my name. And now that we’re this high up (and you’re seeing my face everywhere already), I’ve got no problem with any of you having a link by which you can work out exactly who I am in real life.

So here’s the latest post from my ‘blog. It’s pretty dull unless you use the Squiz CMS at your workplace or write PHP code in your day job, though. I promise I’m more interesting, sometimes.

MegaMegaMonitor v102 released – message encryption, icon suppression, gilding graphs, and moderator tools

This self-post was originally posted to /r/MegaMegaMonitor. See more things from Dan's Reddit account.

I’ve just released MegaMegaMonitor v102. As usual, the new version will probably install itself automatically the next time that your installation of Greasemonkey/Tampermonkey decides to check for it, but you can – if you prefer – force the upgrade to happen immediately by installing MegaMegaMonitor again.

Here’s what’s new in 102:

  • The message encryption tools, which were partially shown off last month, are now available for your use. With them, you can add secret messages to posts and comments that can only be read my MegaMegaMonitor users who also happen to be in particular private subreddits. For example, here’s a secret message that only people in /r/MegaMegaMegaLounge (or higher) will be able to read:

Either you don’t have MegaMegaMonitor installed, or you’re not in the MegaMegaMegaLounge. Sorry!

  • For those of you who were concerned about the proliferation of icons across your screens, and don’t want to see so many, there’s now an icon suppression option. So if you’re in /r/gildeddrunk but don’t want to keep spotting your fellow alcoholics around the place, you can hide that icon. It doesn’t stop other people from that subreddit from seeing the icon next to your name, though!

Edit: Turns out this feature was in v100, too. I can’t keep track. I was pretty sure that there were four features I meant to tell you about today, though… I wonder what I’ve forgotten…

  • Remember the gilding graphs tool I showed you at the start of this month? Well: now it’s a bona fide part of MegaMegaMonitor, and it’s far easier to use than the old copy-and-paste-the-Javascript way, so there’s no excuse for you not to make yourself a graph to show off how you’ve been gilding.
  • And finally, lists. I showed off screenshots from a prototype version of this feature last week, and since then it’s been refined and improved into something that I hope will really help the moderators of some of my favourite private subreddits. But because it runs from your own computer, you can use it even on subreddits that I’m not personally part of (although that does make it a little slower than other MegaMegaMonitor features)! If you can’t see how MMM lists might be useful to you, here’s a recipe book of use cases that might help you to understand.

This is probably the biggest ever new release of MegaMegaMonitor, with a stack of fun new features. Sorry about the delay in releasing it: those of you who know about my personal life have an idea of how busy this month has been for me, so that’s my excuse for the delay!

 

Edit2: I’ve remembered what the fourth thing is, now! I’ve tried to improve the ‘hover’ behaviour of the MMM popup, so it shouldn’t bug you so much if your cursor drifts over it by accident!

Literally about to walk into a job interview. Wish me luck!

This self-post was originally posted to /r/MegaMasonsLounge. See more things from Dan's Reddit account.

As some of you probably already know, I had an interview for my boss’s job the other week. Well my employee has taken the unusual (for them) step of cutting down the list and then arranging a second interview! Me and two others left, by my estimation. Wish me luck!

Edit: Wow, you guys are awesome. I love you all so much. Came out of the interview, looked at my phone, and saw this outpouring of good wishes. Thanks so much! Just what I needed.

Interview went well: better than the first one; think I’m in with a real chance. Should know by the weekend.

MegaMegaMonitor v100 released, now with support for /r/gilderguild

This self-post was originally posted to /r/gilderguild. See more things from Dan's Reddit account.

Full announcement over here

So yeah: I’ve just released the new version of MegaMegaMonitor, and it includes (among other things) support for /r/gilderguild.

What does this mean? Well: it means that you can install MegaMegaMonitor and you’ll be able to instantly identify your fellow Gilder Guild members anywhere else you see them on Reddit. Here’s an example of what it looks like when I, for example, see /u/mrkleen340 talking over on a thread in /r/RhodeIsland!

For those of you who’re also in other private subreddits, like /u/outroversion, /u/k_princess, and /u/IAMA_Plumber-AMA, you’ll also see icons for some of these communities, too. Plus there’s a tool for searching for a person’s posts within a particular subreddit, so if you’ve got a personal policy never to gild anybody who’s posted something in e.g. /r/TheRedPill, then it’s now easier for you to check (I’m not recommending this kind of selective gilding policy, and it’s not for me personally… but I know that some of you do it!).

Anyway: please do go and play with it and let me know what you think. I’m sure that our mods who use it (which is all of them except /u/ULTIMATUM7, as it happens!) will back me up about how valuable a tool it is.

Thanks! Keep up the gilding, guild!

MegaMegaMonitor v100 released – “suppress icon” option, slight CSS improvements, new build system, smaller download

This self-post was originally posted to /r/MegaMegaMonitor. See more things from Dan's Reddit account.

Hi all!

I’ve just made an interim release of MegaMegaMonitor. Not many new features, but I’ve made huge improvements to the way that I build and release MegaMegaMonitor versions, which will make it easier for me to have a “test” version that’s under construction and to later roll those changes into the live release. Which means it’s easier for me to make new features.

Improvements in this release include:

  • A smaller download – MegaMegaMonitor is now down from about 77K to about 43K, which means that it installs faster
  • The Options/Tools panel now has some basic CSS to make it marginally less-hideous
  • A bug was fixed in the “search for a user’s post by subreddit” feature, which caused links to posts that were link (rather than self) posts to link to the content rather than to the post, making them useless
  • An option was added to the Options/Tools panel to allow you to suppress icons that you don’t care about. So if you’re in /r/DecadeClub but for some reason don’t feel a strong attachment to that community, you don’t have to see their icon around Reddit.
  • /r/gilderguild has been added to the icon list.
  • There’s an icon already set up for the next upcoming (not yet announced) MegaLounge, so as soon as it opens and people start getting invited (I think there are about 5 of us gilded-and-ready-to-go, so far, and they’re all special MMM’er), the icon’s already been made. Mysterious, no?

There’s lots more features still to come, but I wanted to give you all of that stuff by way of apology for being sort-of absent for the last week or two. I’m still loving all of your suggestions and I’ll be getting to most of them as soon as I can, but keep them coming. Thanks!

If you already use MMM, the update will probably come automatically for you. Or you can just go to the webpage (linked below) and click “Install MegaMegaMonitor” to force it to update to the latest version.

MegaMegaMonitor installation page/instructions