We’re about a third of where we need to be for the people I am probably going to choose, and as promised, a reward:
Someone had a pea sized cyst that he chewed and chewed and chewed until it became the size of a gold ball and was becoming infected and smelly. We had planned to have it removed next week but had to have it done this morning. It was non-cancerous and Harry assures me this is normal.
At any rate, the goal is to keep the site as much like it is as we can while updating it. If you would like to donate, the link is here:
If you want to donate via snail mail, the email addy is:
Keep putting your comments in about what you want to see.
FWIW- I would also like to add that the only way there will be threaded comments is over my dead body. They’re a god damned abomination. Not fucking happening.
JPL
I would like the contact bar to actually link to an email, so I can find out where to send a check.
Baud
Comments RSS
Betty Cracker
One of my dogs is having a cyst removed Friday. I’m wondering if we’ll have to make BOTH dogs wear the cone of shame…
John Cole
@Betty Cracker: I hope so and you take pictures of them on the couch.
Speaking of the cone of shame, that bastard Thurston doesn’t look very shamed, does he?
Gin & Tonic
@Betty Cracker: Because of this?
Betty Cracker
@John Cole: Just the opposite! He looks proud of the damned cone. Maybe he thinks it makes him look Shakespearean or something….
@Gin & Tonic: Hilarious! And yeah, something like that….
JPL
@John Cole: Thank you… Sent u email
My son’s six pound Maltese has a cyst that needs to be removed. I can’t wait until I see the cone of shame.
Gvg
My dog has had to wear a cone for most of the last 6 months. He was so allergic to things he was chewing himself raw. After many attempts to control fleas we had the costly allergy test done and it said he was allergic to food mites. special costly vet food hadn’t really helped so we started a new drug that just stops itching. That worked but it turns out new drug is in super demand because it works for many itchy dogs and the manufacturer wasn’t prepared for the demand. The vet can’t reliably get it in and he gets a month of relief then weeks of itch while waiting. They call everyone when it’s in and it’s gone in days till the next batch. He just got it a week ago and is still a bit itchy. we also had air conditioner quit and replaced today after 2 weeks. It’s been hot. Our dog is now trained to like baths. Once I gave the other dog a bath and not him and he sulked. It makes him feel better and he knows it.
low-tech cyclist
1) I’ve tossed a few shekels into the hat. Happy to support this place.
2) Fully agree: no threaded comments!
3) A nice feature would be to be able to pay $X per month/quarter/year for an add-free view of the site. Don’t know if that’s feasible, but if it is, that might result in a steady trickle of income to support the site. (But thanks for not having pop-up ads, speaking of abominations before the Lord.)
Mike J
@Gin & Tonic: Jesus Christ, what an asshole.
CS2
I do like how they handle the comments and replies over at Talking Points Memo. All the comments are presented chronologically, but if someone replies to a comment, you can click on a button and the site will pull together the reply/reply/reply comments into a thread for you. You can collapse the aggregate thread as well.
I don’t like that you have to register there, or that the comments open in a new window. The option to pull them together, and then banish the thread, is nice. I’d vote for that and kick in some funds. I’ll kick in some funds anyway.
(Posting under different initials, because someone is using mine and I don’t comment much here anyway these days)
ThresherK
Effective begging picture. I’m in.
HumboldtBlue
@low-tech cyclist: May I suggest using adblockplus? It’s free and it’s outstanding.
Todd Grinnell
Having landscape mode work on an iphone 6 would make me happy. At least on my phone, landscape mode displays as a 1″ wide column of truncated text
Threw in a sawbuck to make my wish come true ;-)
Mike J
@HumboldtBlue: uBlock seems to be a little easier on the CPU, and just as effective. Chrome/Safari/Firefox
HumboldtBlue
@Mike J: Thanks, never seen that one.
Josie
I’m sitting next to an unhappy pug who is wearing the cone of shame due to a hot spot on her head. She insists on scratching it or rubbing it on the couch until it bleeds. We have to take it off for her to eat and drink water and then have to quickly put it back on before she has a chance to scratch it again. She can move really fast when she sees it coming.
Amir Khalid
@Betty Cracker:
That’s it! Thurston’s wearing one of them special Cones of Pride.
Arclite
It’s a fucking pain in the ass to follow multiple conversations on a flat thread. Colostomy bags are “charming” too, but I wouldn’t be happy if I had one.
Now, just implement threaded comments already.
trollhattan
Those front teeth beg for a caption, “You, I know where you leeeeeve!”
Gin & Tonic
@Arclite: I think Cole answered that in an edit.
shell
Hope Thurston heals fast; those cones always look so uncomfortable.
satby
I’m in as of my next payday, no later than next Monday, but sooner if my check gets here faster!
Yeah, I get checks in the mail. Sigh.
sandralhanlon
Please do not let the comments update automatically. A new comments button at the bottom of the comment page would be nice however, just a way to refresh the page right there and keep you in the same place.
SuperHrefna
Poor doggie! I sent my bit in, what I’d like most is a feed on the front page showing the latest comments and what threads they are in. What I’d like next most is to have the site work properly on the iPad – it’s fine if I hold my pad in landscape but if I turn it to portrait the comments are compressed into a two inch strip down the middle.
satby
And please, for all that is holy, NO threaded comments.
low-tech cyclist
@HumboldtBlue: As Atrios has said, using ad blockers not only kills the nasty pop-ups from those sites that have the goddamned things, but also interferes with the revenue stream he gets from his more well-behaved ads.
So I’m kinda reluctant to use ad blocking software unless it just gets to the point where the ads are intolerable. I’d much rather encourage sites to have a pay option that gets you an ad-free site.
If sites as different as Weather Underground and the Straight Dope Message Board have such options, then hopefully some of my favorite blogs (I’m lookin’ at you, Mother Jones and Washington Monthly!) can do the same.
SuperHrefna
@shell: I’m having surgery on my bottom on 9/11 and I’m so glad they don’t give those cones to us! We just get endless sitz baths…
SuperHrefna
@satby: Yes, no threaded comments, they get so unwieldy in active comment sections. But it would be nice if we had the option of getting an email notification if someone replied directly to a comment? It would be even better if we could opt out of that function too… Just turn it on if we particularly want to see replies, and keep it off by default.
satby
For all you people dealing with itchy, miserable dogs, try this stuff. Cleared up my poor old girl Rosie really well when stuff from the vet didn’t. Smells awful and gets everywhere (I put an old t-shirt on her until it’s mostly absorbed. Cheap and effective: http://www.amazon.com/Duvet-001-0530-Nu-Stock-Ointment-12-Ounce/dp/B000HHSIYQ/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1441149266&sr=8-1&keywords=nustock
satby
@SuperHrefna: yeah, that would be cool.
WaterGirl
Bring the balloon man back, please!
I find the current BJ site to be very readable on my laptop. I like the pastel background of the two alternating pastel colors, separated by a tiny bit of white. Please don’t change that.
Cole, smart of you to post the fundraiser on the first of the month.
Brandon
Favorite thing to come out of the Clinton email dump is Blumenthal calling TNR the “preferred outlet for Likud/neocon propaganda”
J C
You can have threaded and unthreaded through CSS. You can record them as threaded and display them that way or in the sequential order they were added to the database. A simple setting on the site for how people prefer to see them and both sides win.
FYI.
kdaug
Careful what you wish for, sunshine…
Me, I’m a man of modest aspiration. A Tunch totebag would seem to hit a couple of the right notes, though.
Maybe with some green balloons.
Arclite
@Gin & Tonic:
If Cole hates threads, that’s fine. Just make Flat vs. Threaded a dropdown that people can select, like this site does (although their threaded comments are a bit clunky). Blues News is running on 15 year old software called Chatbear. If they could do it 15 years ago…
Aleta
@John Cole: He looks a tad doped up.
gogol's wife
@WaterGirl:
Yes, the readability of this version can’t be beat.
Bring back the balloon man.
Renie
I would like a cam set up for John’s house so we can watch the doggies and Steve ALL THE TIME!!
jl
@Arclite: But you can’t read all the comments using the threaded format. That would greatly reduce rage, panic and blind aggression among the thread format users. Not sure how that fits in with the BJ commenter code of conduct.
JohnK
I would like a rotating tag line with, “God didn’t order you to do shit you inbred hick.“
theronware
Thurston is a doggie flower.
NeutronFlux
Donation complete.
JPL
@jl: There’s a balloon juice code of conduct?
Arclite
@JohnK: When I see that woman’s picture all I imagine her thinking is “I’m not getting any, so you can’t either!”
MazeDancer
Would welcome the ability to delete one’s own comment. And ability to edit one’s own comments with no time limit. These things are possible on many forums, perhaps that is possible in FYWP as well.
Is there a way, if one is replying to a comment, that hitting reply makes something like a comment box pop out next to the comment so one does not have to scroll down and back up to copy the part to which one wants to reply?
Hating threaded comments is a personal call by a blog host to which he is absolutely entitled. But it’s difficult to reply here, much scrolling can be involved. It’s difficult to promote conversation. Not everyone quotes. There are all kinds of short replies that are meaningless unless you scroll back up or happen to remember what was said 30 comments earlier. It’s actually easier not to reply but just post something. Which is less rich a discussion.
Are there some non-threaded, un-hated ways to promote conversation, or at least make it easier to see the comment to which one is replying while one replies?
rikyrah
Glad to hear that he is ok.
Good for you about the threaded comments.
Baud
@JPL:
As in, good conduct?
Mike J
@MazeDancer:
The time limit is important. It’s long enough to catch typos. You shouldn’t be able to come back hours later and completely rewrite your argument because everybody pointed out how bad it was.
raven
@Mike J: Yea, I want to change all my fuck lbj’s!
Ruckus
@John Cole:
Thurston is too young to know shame.
Sort of like an old fart who is too old to care. And so has the same level of shame.
Belafon
I’m going to give Charles Johnson at LGF the credit because he’s implemented a number of useful things (yes, he edits the site for fun):
1. A new comments button at the bottom
2. A scroll to bottom button
3. Clicking on a the link in a reply pops up a dialog showing the source comment, also giving the ability to reply.
4. A really long time to edit.
5. Uprate and downrate buttons.
6. Embedded tweets that look like tweets.
Baud
We hate change.
SuperHrefna
@Arclite: She’s had plenty. According to Dan Savage, she’s not only on husband number four, she got pregnant by husband number three while she was still married to husband number one. Husband number two then adopted the kids. http://www.thestranger.com/blogs/slog/2015/09/01/22794191/kim-davis-is-defending-the-sacred-sanctity-of-marriage-from-the-gaysbut-who-will-defend-the-sacred-sanctity-of-marriage-from-kim-davis
You really can’t make this stuff up, the GOP are un-parodiable.
I'mNotSureWhoIWantToBeYet
@J C: Indeed. Giving the reader the option of choosing threaded is the way to go, and it looks like CSS makes it “easy” (just a SMOP, as they say. ;-)
The software here works well if you have an hour to sit and read and post comments all in a row. If you only have a few minutes at a time, it doesn’t work so well.
(Getting back on old hobby-horse:) The problem of threading messages was worked out decades ago with USENET readers. I don’t know why so much of what was learned back then seems to have been forgotten. (Getting off hobby-horse)
Some other things I’ve noticed:
1) The line spacing in blockquoted text seems to be inconsistent. Sometimes its all smashed together vertically, sometimes it’s spaced out more. Try to make it consistent.
2) Please fix the problem where a poster composes a long, carefully argued post, hits “Submit Comment” and the post disappears into a black hole. No error message, no message appears. Sometimes it seems related to a URL (e.g. I’ve seen it with certain English newspapers). If a post is rejected, for any reason, please say why.
3) Please increase the number of allowed links per comment above 3. If you’re worried about abuse, make it a perquisite – “Send us $10 a month and you’ll get to post 10 links per comment!!1” – or something.
4) Threads die too quickly here, I think. Maybe that’s by design, but it means that those of us who can’t post multiple times a day don’t get to contribute much to the conversations. Maybe make the home page longer (so they don’t roll over into the “Older Entries” as fast)? Threading would help here too, of course. ;-)
5) Along with #4, please bring back the “Recent Comments” link/page. The most active conversation isn’t always at the top of the main page.
6) Please make sure any redesign works equally well on PCs, tablets, and phones. The current mobile version doesn’t have comment numbers, and it needs a “return to top” button at the bottom (scrolling back up through 300 comments on a phone isn’t fun).
Someone above mentioned Adblock Plus. I use that too, but was recently reminded that Adblock (scroll down to the FAQ) has some substantial advantages compared to Adblock Plus.
That’s all I can think of now.
Thanks. Best of luck with the changes!
Cheers,
Scott.
(Who will be donating shortly.)
Omnes Omnibus
@MazeDancer:
I disagree. Part of the fun of comment threads here is the random sub-threads that come up. It is possible to have 3 or 4 conversations going at once and cross-pollinating. It is good part of what makes this place fun. Threaded comments balkanize discussions.
raven
@Omnes Omnibus: Fuckin A dawg!
Germy Shoemangler
Please don’t hire the person who re-designed the Charles Pierce Esquire page.
Mike J
@Germy Shoemangler: Or the Maddowblog.
Omnes Omnibus
OT: Today is the 76th anniversary of the start of WWII.
redshirt
Two requests:
1. Bring back “recent comments” or whatever it was called before. You used to have it but got rid of it a couple of years back. You know, the little box on the front page that showed recent comments in the various posts.
2. Get rid of the spam filter? Do you have any problems with bots? If not, ditch it, as it’s not clear and can be frustrating without accomplishing much.
Thanks!
Germy Shoemangler
Does anyone here read classicshowbiz.blogspot? He insists on white text on a black background.
Every time I read one of his interviews, I walk around for the next hour seeing horizontal lines in front of my face.
Ruckus
Whats wrong with the way it is?
Loads reasonable, (when other sites don’t fuck it up) and the reply/back button and refresh button on your browser work just fine to get around.
And no threaded comments. It breaks up the flow of the entire thread. You want to reply, use the reply button.
Exurban Mom
Please let the mobile version have numbered comments. Easier for me to jump back to catch something I missed, then return to the same spot.
Germy Shoemangler
@Omnes Omnibus: I remember when the WWII vets (including my father) were all guys in their forties, and the WWI vets were eighty year olds.
My father remembered seeing Civil War veterans when he was a child.
kdaug
@Omnes Omnibus: Who you callin’ Balkin, jackass?
Ruckus
@Germy Shoemangler:
That can’t have been done by one person. It takes a committee to fuck up anything that bad.
raven
@Omnes Omnibus: My step-mom and half sis are on their way back from a boat tour of the Solomon Islands right now. They took a boat tour that started at Guadalcanal and went up “the slot”. She wanted me to go but I couldn’t with this house nightmare going on.
Mike J
@Ruckus: Charles Pierce. Isn’t he that young man who doesn’t know how to spell fuck?
Germy Shoemangler
@Ruckus: I agree. This has one of the better designs I’ve seen. Clean, fast (except for the problems with Wonkette slowing it down, or the podcast error messages I got for a week or so – but that hasn’t been an issue lately).
Someone should win an award for this site.
Not sure about removing spam blocking, though (even though I’ve had my share of comments eaten). Every place I visit seems to be overwhelmed by “my cousin makes $8000 a day on the computer” comments. It would be heartbreaking to see that here, although I suspect the responses from commenters would be hilarious.
Auntie Anne
Threw some in. No wishes in particular, but I do miss Balloon Man.
Ruckus
@Germy Shoemangler:
The WWII vets at the VA are all in their very late 80s-90s now. And there aren’t many left at my fairly sizable clinic here in LaLa land.
raven
@Germy Shoemangler: I came home 46 years ago Thursday. WW2 had only been over 24 years at that time.
redshirt
@Germy Shoemangler: If not getting rid of the spam blocker, then make it known what words are on the list. As of now it’s like playing russian roulette.
Elizabelle
The teeth just make that photograph. It’s like the donkey in Shrek.
I’m in, dammit.
And no threaded comments. Quel horreur.
Elizabelle
@raven: We shall celebrate Thursday.
Germy Shoemangler
@Ruckus: My father died in 2000. He left some medals and an ammo box I use to store documents. He had a rough time as a rifleman.
raven
@Elizabelle: Yea, football starts!
Elizabelle
@Exurban Mom: Yes! Numbered comments.
So civilized.
raven
@Germy Shoemangler: Which theater?
Baud
@Elizabelle:
Hereafter to be known as Ravensday.
raven
@Baud: Ho Chi Minh died that day.
Germy Shoemangler
@raven: Vietnam vets are the oldsters now.
And I must be getting old because it feels weird to me to see WWII becoming old history rather than recent history.
redshirt
@Germy Shoemangler: @Germy Shoemangler: If not getting rid of the spam blocker, then make it known what words are on the list. As of now it’s like playing russian roule##e.
Ha! My response got moderated. Point made.
Baud
@raven:
Was it you?
Cervantes
@raven:
To what?
Germy Shoemangler
@raven: He was in the battle of the bulge. Saw his friends blown to pieces. Told me he finally stopped wanting to make friends, because he got tired of grieving every time they’d get killed.
The stories he told me were graphic and grotesque. No John Wayne stuff.
Ruckus
@JPL:
There’s a BJ code of conduct?
Fuck yes.
No hating small animals, no dissing John’s attire or lack of same, no giving John crap about keeping the boys in place and out of public sight, no swearing……
raven
@Baud: Ha, I flew out of Tan Son Nhut commercial and they dumped us in the runway in Guam for 8 hours and then put us on a 141 to Travis.
raven
@Cervantes: I want to put the l in caps!
Elizabelle
@Baud: That works for me.
At first was thinking you meant Charm City’s team, but then realized it’s for Bohdi’s raven.
Highly acceptable. In lowercase.
Mike E
Please place the back to top button navigation bar on the mobile site all the way at the bottom…it shows up at the underside of the posted article, but above the comments, on my droid chrome for some reason.
Thank you for ignoring!
raven
@Germy Shoemangler: That and the Hurtgen were awful.
Kristine
Apropos of nothing, I saw my first Trumper sticker today–an older couple with Masonic and fish badges on the car.
Saw a Ben Carson one last week.
I live in an area that may be gradually trending D, but has historically been ultra conservative Christianist R.
No sightings of JEB! or any of the other candidates.
Ruckus
@Germy Shoemangler:
Mine died in 2001. He was in the navy, WWII vet, Pacific theater. I’ve seen pictures but he never would talk about it, even when I asked. He’d be 98 if he was still here.
raven
Germy Shoemangler
@efgoldman:
Eyewitness to Lincoln assassination
BruceFromOhio
@Belafon:
Sorry, Bel, I will pay not to have this. I will pay extra not to have this.
@Baud: This.
Omnes Omnibus
@efgoldman: My paternal grandfather and three of his brothers served in WWII – the youngest brother served in Korea. My maternal grandfather was in a reserved occupation and nearly 39 at the time of Pearl Harbor.
Gin & Tonic
@Germy Shoemangler: The stories he told me were graphic and grotesque
My father, who died relatively young, never said one word to me about the war. In retrospect, that’s even worse.
raven
@Gin & Tonic: A lot of them stuffed it. My old man talked to me about the Pacific after I cam home but not much before.
Ruckus
@Germy Shoemangler:
I made friends with a Marine sargent while I was in the hospital, he had the problem of having to send members of his squad up hills, knowing that the would have to be carried out in a body bag. He described almost the entire movie Hamburger Hill to me, several yrs before it was made. Seeing that movie I could hear his voice telling me what was going to happen next.
kindness
I’m loving John’s attitude. ‘Give me all your suggestions, please.’ to ‘I will play Donald Trump with your suggestions and don’t forget it’.
Omnes Omnibus
@raven: My grandfather didn’t talk about the war to his kids. He did a bit to me after I joined the army.
SiubhanDuinne
@Omnes Omnibus:
Damn, that is excellent. You said, but much better, exactly what I was trying to say in the earlier Fall Fundraiser post about the awfulness of threaded comments/wonderfulness of the Random BJ Model. “Threaded comments Balkanize discussions” — perfect!
SFAW
What I’d like to see:
1) Cheney’s head on a pike
2) A Dem Congress, with a minimum of Blue Dogs
3) A Dem president
4) Roger Ailes’s head on a pike
5) Rupert Murdoch deported, and his entire media empire nationalized
6) Jimmy O’Keefe fucking with the wrong person
7) A Mets manager with more than a quarter of a clue
Wait … you meant the site?
Oh.
raven
@Ruckus: And Hamburger Hill was supposed to be the last time we did that. Then came Ripcord.
SiubhanDuinne
@Germy Shoemangler:
Thanks for saying that. What a disaster it is. I still love to read Charlie, but I hate going to that site now.
seaboogie
@theronware: hah! He is!
Mike J
@efgoldman: His oh so cutesy “fvck” annoys the fuck out of me. Say it or don’t. Nut up or shut up. If you can’t use the word fuck, don’t try to use the word fuck.
(ETA: the young man crack was Tallulah Bankhead’s when she met Norman Mailer.)
raven
@Omnes Omnibus: He figured you’d understand.
Germy Shoemangler
After what my father went through, the thing that bugs me the most is when I see people like Dick Cheney or Lindsey Graham “talk tough” about attacking other countries.
Omnes Omnibus
@raven: That, and he wanted to give me some advice about how to deal with NCOs. He was a Tech Sergeant.
SFAW
@efgoldman:
You mean your child-bride?
Phoenix? Real Paper? Some other one? I used to read them, but don’t recall many of the writers. Mark Zanger maybe (don’t recall his pen name)
SFAW
@Germy Shoemangler:
Graham at least did something, albeit not a whole lot. Cheney, on the other hand, with his “other priorities,” can’t die soon enough.
Ruckus
@Germy Shoemangler:
In a past life I rode/drove his truck to events with a man who flew the hump in a C47 as radioman. He rarely would talk about his service. But he was one tough old bird, his left arm didn’t work (I’ve heard different stories about why) but he wouldn’t let them amputate so he always wore long sleeve shirts. He had to have someone cut his steak at meals but other than that, independent as hell. Played golf, and a lot better than a lot of people with two working arms.
SiubhanDuinne
@Germy Shoemangler:
I feel certain I’ve mentioned this before, so apologies if I’m getting repetitive: One of my great-grandfathers, who lived until I was 4 or 5 and whom I vaguely remember, was a veteran of both the U.S. Civil War and the Spanish-American War. The family story is that in order to enlist he lied about his age — both times!
Memorial Day parades in my childhood always included a couple of carloads of CW vets, plenty of middle-aged WWI vets, and vast numbers of young, handsome WWII vets.
raven
@Omnes Omnibus: What did he tell you? “Listen to what they tell your butterbar ass to do”!
Ruckus
@raven:
I’ve told people the problem isn’t that they don’t remember, it’s that they can’t forget, no matter how hard they try.
raven
@Ruckus: The CBI with Vinegar Joe and Dean Rusk.
raven
@Ruckus: yup
SFAW
@efgoldman:
My aunt’s first husband was in (I think) the Battle of the Bulge, in the medical corps. He and my father had been very close before the War. After the War, they were still close, but my uncle was now somewhat nuts. This was before the term PTSD came into being, but it seems likely that’s what it was.
He was still able to function as a medical professional, but my aunt grew to fear for her life, and my cousins (to whom I was and still am very close) fared only slightly better. I, being young and clueless, did not find out any of this until many years later. I still haven’t decided if I wish I had known sooner.
Omnes Omnibus
@raven: Tell them what needs to be done and by when. Don’t tell them what to do. Then get out of the way and let them do it – be available in case there are problems. Let them know that their rating is going be based on my rating (For example, if my overall rating is crappy but I get good scores as a supply officer, the supply NCO gets a great NCOER and vice versa). Things like that.
geg6
Threw in earlier today.
Can’t imagine life with Lovey with one of those things on. She’d be insane. Does Thurston have an underbite and Lovey an overbite? Too funny, if so.
Ruckus
@Mike J:
Once in a business meeting (some in person, some on conference call) someone said a euphemism for fuck and the meeting moderator said to the effect, we are all adults here, you mean to say fuck, say fuck. We all did after that. Funny thing was, not one person in that meeting was shy about using it in person, only in meetings. I’d bet that C. Pearce isn’t using it because of where he works.
SFAW
@efgoldman:
I used to listen to WFNX before it died, haven’t made the effort to check out their WebRadio thing since the Glob picked it up.
Gin & Tonic
@raven: The war made my old man a pacifist. Also probably killed him, as I think he took up smoking when he was captured and then could never stop.
SFAW
@Omnes Omnibus:
Excellent advice, truly.
Gin & Tonic
@Ruckus: If The Economist can print “fuck” when they mean fuck, then Esquire can, too.
seaboogie
@SiubhanDuinne: Agreed with you and Omnes on why the open threads make this place special. More scrolling and remembering involved if you want to comment (such first world problems!) but the wide-open-ness encourages serendip and often takes the convo in fun and interesting directions. Keeps our minds nimble and makes the trolls work harder. Win/Win.
I did check out LGF, and it’s a nice site. If posts could be done by topic (pets, and photos thereof), politics, gardening, etc. with photos, I think it would keep more threads more active for longer – rather than the chronological set-up we have now.
As a west-coaster. If I want to comment on a thread after work, half the folks are in the sack by then. This option could keep threads active for a few days and build the commenting/contributing community.
Anne Laurie
@low-tech cyclist:
Seconded! Cole, you could always ask Charles (the Sane One) Johnson for advice on this…
@redshirt:
This, I can answer — 40 or 50 every day, some of them page-long blocks of randompasta. I go in first thing when I log on, fish out the couple genuine comments that get caught (and I’m thinking some of the other front-pagers have the same routine).
You do NOT want all the spamcruft clotting up every thread, I guaran-damn-tee!
NCSteve
I know I’m late to the party and it’s been said to death, but I’m sorry. I just can’t stop giggling at Thurston’s “Look what I got! Isn’t it awesome? I’m the coolest dawg evah!” look in that picture.
And thanks for that, because it’s been a shit day. Turns out spending most of the day chortling over idiot bigot clerk in my home state boarding the Contempt Express fast train to Federal Consequences is kinda toxic, like eating a box of sugar cubes or drinking cocktails made of absinth and cheap tequila.
NCSteve
@SFAW: Literally. Who knew there were still that many unicorns and when will somebody rescue them from his Secure Undisclosed Unicorn Slaughterhouse?
J R in WV
Thurston Howl with a Bozo collar, looks too self-satisfied, totally!
We had a big dog named Boomer, 80-90 pounds, a big lover of people he knew. He would bite the bumper or rear tire of delivery trucks departing, though. And bark like a Boomer.
One winter he needed minor surgery, and a cheap bozo collar was provided. We let him out one night, and it was around zero degrees farenheit – cold. The plastic in the bozo collar looked just like the collar in the post – not too thick, translucent, etc. When Boomer banged his collar into a little sapling it shattered into a hundred jagged fragments, with a collar around his neck with a jagged fringe of bozo, no longer capable of keeping him from licking his wound.
We took him back to the clinic, where we learned that there are heavy-duty bozo collars, suitable for a 90 pound dog in the winter climate of the W Va mountains. But not cheap. That one lasted until he had healed up. He was a great dog, everyone liked him, and he liked everyone who liked him.
But the truck of sneak thieves that showed up one spring day… he didn’t like them much at all! They drove up to the shop and started looking for stuff to steal, being sneak thieves. I let Boomer out our front door about when the first thief got out of their brush-painted grey chevy truck, and when Boomer got up there and barked they got back into their truck.
Enough said, and Boomer did a good job. What a Good Dog he was. We miss our Boomer boy, he was protective of his pack! He had a great life on a country farm, and did what he knew to do to take care of his people.
But that night with the shattered bozo collar, that was really funny!!
redshirt
@Anne Laurie: Good to know. Thanks.
Does anyone have a list of the forbidden words in the spam filter?
SFAW
@redshirt:
Well, not so much a word list, but the first phrase in something exceedingly dangerous:
Wenn ist das Nunstruck git und Slotermeyer?
usw.
Ruckus
@Gin & Tonic:
I take that as my motto. If I mean fuck, I say fuck. OK sometimes I say FUCK!!!!!!!
I also took lessons from a friend. He was the CEO of the parent company I worked for in professional sports. I met him years before I went to work there and only knew him from public events. Thought he didn’t swear. Until I was in his office one day talking. That’s when I knew he had been a sailor. Public speaking, I refrain from using Fuck.
I'mNotSureWhoIWantToBeYet
@redshirt: I assume there isn’t a list of spam words – otherwise the spammers would simply work around them. FSM knows that they’ve caused enough issues here – if there is a list it should be linked to at the top of the page or in a FAQ here or something.
But some are well known (related to d r u g s and g a m b l i n g), but others are weird (w a t s o n?).
(Of course, that probably is going to get me thrown in the dungeon.)
Cheers,
Scott.
SiubhanDuinne
@I’mNotSureWhoIWantToBeYet:
Is s h o e s still a spamword? I never did understand that one.
Edit: guess not
SiubhanDuinne
Testing: shoes
Mary G
Live ThurstonCam! wouldn’t be a bad fundraiser. I’d watch.
Jane2
Happy to make a contribution. A pic of Steve might prompt me to contribute further.
I'mNotSureWhoIWantToBeYet
@SiubhanDuinne: I found this list but I don’t know if it applies here. It doesn’t have w a t s o n in it and does have shoes in many places. 19658 entries. :-/
It’s a mystery wrapped up in a FYWP. ;-)
Cheers,
Scott.
Ruckus
@efgoldman:
What amazed me was that I’d know this person for almost 20 yrs before I discovered that he swore. I’d listened to him speak in public dozens of times and talked to him on numerous others and never heard even a hell or damn. But in his office he could get a stream going that was as good as I’ve ever heard anywhere. Walk out of the office and that public persona takes over. I can do that some what but not to his level nor smoothness.
Steeplejack
@sandralhanlon:
You can refresh the page now by using your browser’s “generic” refresh button (or command).
But perhaps what you mean is that when you do that you get taken back to the top of the post. I don’t know which version of the site you are using (desktop or mobile), but on the desktop version you can “anchor” your position by clicking the time stamp next to a commenter’s name. That also moves that comment to the top of the browser page. Then, when you press your browser’s refresh button, new comments will be added but your “position” will remain on the current comment.
ETA: As I wrote this I got some vague memories of the mobile version always taking you back to the top of the post when you update the page. But I have found the mobile site so screwed up in so many ways that I use the desktop version on my tablet and even on my cell phone. Nonetheless, perhaps this problem can be fixed in the site upgrade.
Omnes Omnibus
@SiubhanDuinne: Thank you very much.
I'mNotSureWhoIWantToBeYet
@SiubhanDuinne: The BlogMaster has said it’s NotGonnaHappen, but there’s no reason why the software couldn’t let readers choose whether to display the page in a threaded or flat format. Everyone who replies to a comment rather than just creating a new stand-alone comment is threading their replies – it’s just not displayed that way. It’s not Balkanizing the discussion to have threaded comments, any more than the lack of threading is turning into B-J into a rowdy bar where everyone is screaming to be heard over the cover band’s bad version of “Free Bird”.
Lack of threading makes readers work harder.
My $0.02. :-)
Cheers,
Scott.
(Who recognizes that there’s a lot of bad implementations of threaded GUIs on web sites out there. But the concept is sound.)
Steeplejack
@MazeDancer:
What I do is copy the text I want to reply to before I press the Reply button. Then, once I’m in the “compose comment” box, I use the insert command and it’s right there. (If you want to reply to multiple parts of the same comment, just copy the whole comment and slice and dice it in the compose-comment box as needed.)
Forgive me if I’m mentioning something you already know, but if you click on the highlighted name of the person being replied to, you will get taken back to their comment. Then you can use the backspace button to go back down to the reply. (You can also use this to go through whole strings of replies, or “conversations”: click the names of the people going up, then use the backspace button to come back down, reading the messages in order.)
ETA: To illustrate, if I click on @MazeDancer at the start of this comment, I get taken up to your comment. Then if I press the backspace button I get brought back down to this comment.
Omnes Omnibus
@I’mNotSureWhoIWantToBeYet: Different brains process information differently. I find it easier to follow the multiple conversations if they are going on at once than I do if they are split into separate threads. Plus, i find the incongruities that pop up to be fun.
Omnes Omnibus
@efgoldman: Yeah. Or a cool dive bar.
Steeplejack
@Omnes Omnibus:
I think I might grudgingly accept threaded conversations—as an option!—if I could be convinced there is a good visual implementation of it. Every one I have seen relies on indentation of replies, which gets more and more ridiculous as you get down to deeper levels of replies. To me that is more distracting than the scheme we have here now (which does take some getting used to).
I'mNotSureWhoIWantToBeYet
@Omnes Omnibus: Sure, several of you folks have pointed out the benefits of having a flat display. The beauty of CSS and taking advantage of stuff that’s already out there is that it seems (I am not a coder) like the content is separated enough from the way it is displayed that Cole’s coders could give readers the option of a flat display for those who want it, and a threaded display for those who want that, with little extra effort. The information would be the same.
I don’t expect to convince anyone – we’ve all got our reasons for our opinions – but it would be a nice thing to have the choice and thereby make everyone happy. ;-)
Cheers,
Scott.
(Who thought
the Democratic PartyBalloon-Juice was supposed to be a big tent!!11 ;-)Omnes Omnibus
@Steeplejack: My first blog was TableTalk at Salon back when TBOGG was a mere commenter there. Then Eschaton. Then here. I am used to this format. Honestly, if Balloon Juice went to threaded comments, I would have to go elsewhere.* Even if it is just an option, I think it would have negative effects.
*Some may see that as a feature not a bug.
SFAW
@Omnes Omnibus:
No one of consequence.
ETA: Or should that be “Inconceivable!”?
Steeplejack
@I’mNotSureWhoIWantToBeYet:
I would like to see a workable mechanism to seamlessly switch between threaded and flat conversations. My resistance is based on the history of past site “upgrades” here: they were long on trivial eye candy and frippery and didn’t do much to address the large structural problems in the back office. Anyone else remember when we got “[Commenter] says” Yeah, that was a milestone.
In short, we got too much home decorating and not enough plumbing/electrical work.
sandralhanlon
@Steeplejack: I do use the desktop, even on tablets and I do know about anchoring, but I am old and spacey, so yes, I end up at the top of the thread often when I do a page refresh. Cursing ensues.
Omnes Omnibus
@I’mNotSureWhoIWantToBeYet: I will also suggest that the format of the site attracts the commenters that it has. For better of for worse. Messing with the the formatting will create structural changes. But, if you find it more convenient…. If more monomaniacal obsessives rather than polymath weirdos is your goal, by all means, let’s go with threaded comments.
ETA: I prefer the polymath weirdos.
Ruckus
@Omnes Omnibus:
I’ll take that as a complement.
I'mNotSureWhoIWantToBeYet
@Steeplejack:
People like different things, and these things go through phases. Like anything, if software isn’t updated, it becomes creeky. Scoop works pretty well (BoomanTribune uses it). I know Scoop is getting long-in-tooth though (and Booman’s moving away from it). It gives users the choice of Nested / Flat / Threaded, etc., etc. So I know it’s not an option (and many people hate the rating stuff anyway).
http://forum.iwethey.org has some nice features (one does need an account to access many of them). It works very well for the users there, but it doesn’t have a “flat” option. It is a programming guru’s pet project that has been a labor of love for ~ 15 years or more (it grew out of the InfoWorld commenting community). It’s speedy, compact, and does what he wants it to do. It’s not an option for here, I know, and I wouldn’t recommend that it be one. It just illustrates a different way of doing things.
This is all “I like chocolate / I like cheesecake” kibitzing, it seems to me, since JC has let us know where he stands. I find it hard to get my head around OO’s comment that he’ll leave if it’s an option, but people are different. (shrug). I do find it unfortunate that we’re so constrained by WordPress, but WP and the web wasn’t really designed for community commenting so it’s not surprising. Maybe someday someone will come up with something better.
My $0.02.
Cheers,
Scott.
Elizabelle
I like all the white space. Don’t like too busy interfaces; they’re ADHD inducing.
Def not threaded comments; it’s probably keeping us young to puzzle out what some commenters are riffing off of/responding to.
Does make for some funny and unique threads.
Bill Arnold
Agree about threaded comments. They ruin comment sections, especially when trolls are gaming them.
phoebes-in-santa fe
@Mike J: The Maddow blog is worst I’ve ever come across. I was a real Steve Benen fan but there’s no way I understand the Maddow blog’s comment section and so I’ve stopped going over there. And I miss Steve Benen…
Why is anything changing on this blog? It seems to work fine.
bjacques
Just sent a little luv. I’m pretty happy with BJ as is.
EthylEster
I’m late to the thread but just want to say that the last or next to last site upgrade resulted in large margins on both sides of the text. And when I try to narrow the browser, the margins stay fixed and only the narrow central area with all the text is affected. Maybe is this a feature, not a bug but it is annoying.
I agree about threaded comments…DIE! But something like using Shift-Click on Reply to get the entire post included in the reply would be helpful to me. I like context when I reply….
WaterGirl
No FLASH, please.
My bank redid their website using flash everywhere and it’s ridiculous.