And...We're Back (Again)
After posting a hopeful note earlier in which I hoped (against hope, really) that everything on the site had been worked out, I ran into more trouble. I’ve now blown an entire day on this problem and have had little choice but to revert to the older Movabletype-based commenting system. You know, the same one every other blog has. So much for originality. Anyways, you should now be able to post comments and you’ll no longer have to register in the forums as you once did. I suppose this means you’ll even be able to post anonymously. What this will do for discussion around here is going to be interesting. I hope that it will prove less intimidating and that more people will comment.
So thank you for your patience and please continue to bear with me as I try to resurrect this beast of a site!
Comments (17) »
1. impleri
January 11, 2006
6:02 PM
It looks like some of the phpbb tables went AWOL.
2. Tim
January 11, 2006
6:20 PM
Something like that. The tables seem to be locked so I can’t get in there and clear out the sessions table. Anyways, I’ve switched to the MT commenting solution at least for now.
3. David Chalkley
January 11, 2006
7:00 PM
Dear Tim, Thank you for all the time and effort you give to make this forum available. Countless hours. I would give you invaluable advice on this, but I am illiterate in this technology. (not anonymously) Dave Chalkley
4. Tim
January 11, 2006
7:45 PM
Thanks, David.
I think the forums are kaput, at least for now. But at least this other commenting capability is available!
5. David Norris
January 11, 2006
8:34 PM
I like this new format better. There are far too many things with passwords and the like. If I wanted Passwords, I’d be on that show with the late Allen Ludden. Keep to the faith my friend in Christ.
6. Tim
January 11, 2006
8:42 PM
I’m inclined to agree. But get back to me the first time a porn spammer hits me with 100 dirty spam attempts.
7. wfseube
January 11, 2006
10:49 PM
Bummer. I much prefer the forums. This doesn’t retain my thread history
8. wfseube
January 11, 2006
10:55 PM
And….I can’t find anything! Where are all the old discussions? Are they toast along with the forums?
I’m with mike - withdrawals….!!! There were a lot of good, lively threads going (“Velvet Elvis”, etc.). And where is the General Discussion?
My prayers are with your skills for resurrecting the forums!
And I never had to deal with passwords. You enter it once, and you never see it again.
9. Tim
January 12, 2006
6:16 AM
I will make an attempt at getting the forums back so we can at least recover the old discussions. However I don’t think I can bring back the old commenting system. The traffic on this site just increased too much to be able to handle that kind of load.
10. Tim
January 12, 2006
6:35 AM
I should add that it seems prudent to prioritize actually having a workable site over having a commenting system that is a tad more convenient! :)
I think the downside to this way of doing comments is that the casual commenter who wants little more than making trouble will be far more likely to drop condescending or senseless comments. Previously he would have had to go through the bother of creating an account and that kept a lot of people at bay. It was a good “filter.” But anyways, I think we outgrew that system…
11. David Norris
January 12, 2006
7:16 AM
Tim, do you have comment moderator feature as do most blogs? Before any comment is published, I am notified as to whether I wish to accept, reject, or moderate the comments. That will stop your porn commentors from invading your site.
12. Tim
January 12, 2006
7:57 AM
David - I do have comment moderating. I am hoping to strike a balance so that I do not need to moderate each and every comment. After all, it is not unusual to receive 50 or 60 comments on an article and I just don’t have time to manually accept or reject each one.
13. impleri
January 12, 2006
10:16 AM
Which version of phpBB were you running?
14. Tim
January 12, 2006
10:31 AM
I was using 2.0.17. It’s still there, of course. I just need to find a way of unlocking the tables so I can clear out the sessions table.
15. impleri
January 12, 2006
12:37 PM
That you may have to contact iPowerWeb about because, according to what i just read at MySQL, only the user creating the lock on a table can unlock that table. :(
16. wfseube
January 12, 2006
3:02 PM
Well, I don’t want to tell you how to lay things out, since you are obviously very good at it, but without the forums to follow discussions, I think you’ll need to restructure how you list past postings. From what I can tell, the only way to effectively look at past postings in chronological order is the “Also New This Week” list, and that only goes back (obviously) a week. There is the “Master Archives”, but that is a little too exhaustive.
Perhaps you could make the “Master Archives” a paged list, or somehow do a month-by-month listing.
17. Tim
January 12, 2006
3:11 PM
I’ve got a few ideas, but unfortunately there seems to be a small problem in my MT installation that is holding me back. The MT support people are looking into it. Once I resolve that (if I resolve that) I’ll create a page that will allow us to monitor recent discussions a whole lot easier.
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