OK. Stop Donating

We have enough for the website and I have sent her the money via paypal, so please stop donating. However, you can use this thread to talk about site issues. Thanks!

*** Update ***

I’m going through the comments suggestions, and while there is a lot of good stuff, let me be perfectly clear.

We are not doing a like button, rated comments, or nested comments.

We are not doing avatars. That failed miserably the last time we tried it.

We are not opening links in new tabs. If you want that to happening, try holding down the CTRL button while you click a link. You’ll be shocked and awed. Same with a link to go to the bottom of the page. Look at your computer. Press the buttons marked “home” and “end.” Prepare to be amazed.

You are not getting permission to post videos and pictures. I’m not going to wake up one morning and discover that Punchy has posted Two Girls One Cup 100 times in every comment thread.

Site Redesign and Rebuild Open Thread #2

Last thread was filling up, so here is a new one.

Looks like we are targeting this weekend for a redesign and rebuild, so please place your wants, needs, and desires, as well as anything that is broken in the comments below.

Any suggestions on design would be appreciated. I’d like to keep things as close to they are now, BUT BETTERER and NEWERER!

Also, please hit the tip jar if you want to pitch in on the costs of the build.

Constructive comments only. I will open up another open thread for your random blather.

Site Redesign and Rebuild

Looks like we are targeting this weekend for a redesign and rebuild, so please place your wants, needs, and desires, as well as anything that is broken in the comments below.

Any suggestions on design would be appreciated. I’d like to keep things as close to they are now, BUT BETTERER and NEWERER!

Also, please hit the tip jar if you want to pitch in on the costs of the build.

*** Update ***

Awesome guys. Let’s fill this thread with moronic bullshit so it is impossible for me to make an actual list. Running this site is like trying to drive a clown car on ice.

And let’s clear one thing up. There will never, ever, ever be a ratings system for comments where you vote things up or down. I can’t stand that crap. I can decide on my own whether someone is an idiot or full of shit, I don’t need you all voting on it.

On the other hand, this might not be a bad idea:

Color Coded Terror Alert System that tracks John Coles mood swings.

Site Maintenance

Lots of server related stuff happening tonight. They tried to explain it to me, but all I really know is the site will be up and down tonight.

Site Rebuild

Just so you understand, I am not immune to criticism about the site performance. The thing is, I can’t immediately deal with every single complaint every single time one of you has it- sometimes, performance issues simply are not on our end, but rather, they are yours. Basically, I have to look at things in the aggregate, and look at a cost benefit analysis. Does it bother me that sometimes during high traffic nights, it takes you all a couple seconds more to load, or on rare occasions, the site simply hangs indefinitely? Yes, it does. But that doesn’t necessarily mean I really need to do anything, because from my perspective, a site that functions at top form 92-95% of the time is doing A work.

Now, none of this is meant to dismiss your complaints. I’m just saying that I look at this from a different perspective. When you are all “I CAN’T LOAD FUCK YOU AL GORE YOUR INTERNET SUCKS” and pissed about the site performance, I take a bigger view, and notice that several hundred other people were able to comment and thousands were able to access the website during the period you claim the site was unavailable.

Having said all that, I just talked to the blogmistresses, and at some point in the next few months we will be doing a site rebuild. One of our goals will be to streamline things so that there are not as many db calls, and that may include using fewer plugins. At this point, though, we are just looking at everything, and trying to make an informed decision on how best to keep this community ship floating forward without hitting any icebergs. So, while the redesign will not take place for probably a month to two months from now, keep in mind things you think make this site usable, and how we can make it better.

We’d like to make sure everything is rebuilt by June/July, so that we are ready to hit the nitrous and really cruise through the next election cycle with top-notch server performance. For now, though, we are in the planning/needs stage, so everything we do is tentative. I’d like to keep the look and the basic usability of the site as much the same as possible- I am a “dance with the girl that brung you” kind of guy. But if you think there are things we should definitely be doing better, we will give it serious consideration. And while I am at it, let me put in a word of support for the ladies at Hosting Matters and for Stacy at Sekimori. I’m big on supporting small business, and these women have been nothing but a real joy to work with the last 7-8 years. They have my unqualified recommendation, and if you ever need web hosting or site design, contact them. They’re good people, and I appreciate everything they have done for us.

This is the first of what will be a series of posts soliciting your opinion prior to us finalizing any decisions for the rebuild.

And criminy, that felt like corporate speak. I need to stick a bar of soap in my mouth. The things I do for you people.

Site Issues

DougJ and Mistermix have assaulted me with a nonstop campaign of constant harassment about site performance issues. Frankly, I thought the site was performing relatively well and was pretty stable, with a few hitches during high-traffic periods (debates, SOTU, etc.). I don’t know how much of our issue may be that we are simply nearing the end of what WordPress can accomplish on its own, and it is software and not bandwidth. And every time DougJ claims he can not connect, I log in and have no problems. So, I’m wondering what exactly is going on.

At any rate, if you have been having problems connecting, let me know about it here and I will try to see where we go from here.

Open Thread

Yes, I am aware the site is loading slower than molasses. I am working on it. Other than general slowness, are there any other problems?

Fat Man in a Bathtub

I figure I have run this blog for ten years, you should have a chance to look at the fat bastard that runs it. I’ve avoided it, because I don’t like the way I look- I used to be a skinny little kid- now I am some middle aged fat shit with grey in his beard and a double chin, but you know what, at some point you just have to deal with what you is. And this is what I is.

So ten years in, here is your host:

At this point, you probably understand why I post pet pics most of the time. Never thought I would hit 41 looking like Santa’s greying helper.

Site Maintenance

I am aware the site has been slow, and we are working on it, but I will once again remind you that there is simply no point spamming the refresh button if your load time is long. It does nothing but slow down the site even more by sending repeated requests.

Back To High School

This is my last say on this ridiculous matter. I have no idea why ABL has decided that this was all about her, because I have repeatedly stated that what Glenn said was dickish. I don’t think anyone actually thinks she would defend President Obama raping a nun.

This is when several idiots will then pop in and say “But Glenn said he was serious! She really would defend it.” Because no one on the planet has ever made statements like “I am so hungry I think I could seriously eat a horse” or “I am so sick of this I could seriously slit my wrists.” No one really has had to “wait forever” for someone. I don’t really need to point out that there isn’t that much horse eating going on, do I? Hyperbole, WTF IS THAT?

So Glenn repeated something dickish that someone else started. And you know what- I ignored it. Why? Because not sue if you follow twitter, but there is a relentless group of people who, at any given moment, are hurling insults at Glenn. ABL is most certainly one of the members of that group. Hell, she used, and I allowed her to use, this website as a launching point for some of the most scathing attacks on Glenn, some times even thinly sourced innuendo. She’s called him grifter, a liar, a fraud, and so on, and there is ongoing bad blood between the two. So as far as I was concerned, it was all in the game between those two, and I said nothing.

Then last night, after several days of crocodile tears about Glenn hating on rape victims, I lost it. This wasn’t about rape to these people- this was about using whatever they could as a cudgel against Glenn. It completely distorted what he said- he wasn’t minimizing rape, he was using rape as the ugliest example he could think of (and he later added child-killing and assassination), far from minimizing rape and far from making rape “jokes.” It was disgusting. What I saw wasn’t about rape, it was about a new blunt force weapon to be used in the GGihad against “Hamwald.” So I said as much.

And then spent the next three hours letting the Greenwald jihad turn their guns on me- I’m mocking rape victims, I’m attacking ABL, how dare I choose sides (when I didn’t do anything of the sort), this is typical “male behavior,” that I am a privileged white male so therefore don’t understand, I’m a hick libertarian, how could I do this to ABL, is this the hill I want to die on, etc. That’s how they roll- relentless, multiple, frantic, repeated tweets, each one with more umbrage and more outrage, feeding on each other, with each comment working valiantly to prove that the person is more outraged than the previous person. It’s manic.

My personal favorite tweet was from our own ABL, who informed the world that I was “laughing at rape survivors.” You sure can lob ‘em, can’t you?

But back to the point, no, I didn’t “side” with Glenn over this juvenile bullshit (in the big scheme of things, if I sided with anyone, wouldn’t it be the person I gave access to the front page to lob grenades at GG?), I just merely pointed out that the people doing a two day “GLENN RAPE RAWR” tweetfest simply to attack Glenn had lost the plot. And I maintain that. What Glenn said to ABL was dickish, but in the scheme of things hurled between the two of them, pretty tame. So I’m sorry to see ABL go, but I’m not going to back down to a crowd of idiots on twitter. For those of you who love to point out I was a former Republican, you are right- and I saw this kind of behavior before, where the “enemy” is always wrong and must be destroyed. Hell, y’all wanna go old school, just drop the rape stuff and call Greenwald an anti-Semite. There’s lots of material already written for you on the internet out there. So maybe I’m a little touchy when I see these manic internet pile-ons when everyone is in shoot to kill mode. Objectively pro-Saddam, anyone? Fifth column, anyone? I watch people unironically invoke “OBAMA DERANGEMENT SYNDROME,” apparently unaware that BDS (Bush Derangement Syndrome) was something invented by diehard Bush loyalists to deflect any and all criticism of Bush.

So that is that. As far as I am concerned, ABL can write here whenever she wants. If she chooses not to, well, that is her decision.

Listen, Assholes

There was so much offensive shit in that last open thread I took the unprecedented step of just deleting the whole god damned thing turning off the comments. I am really sick of some of you people. And I don’t just mean the trolls, I mean the people who simply can not control themselves and feed the trolls. In fact, you are almost worse. If someone says something offensive to the point you think it is worth calling them a pedophile or c-bomb, STOP BEFORE YOU COMMENT and move on.

Christ on a crutch. I feel like I am on a playground, and I don’t know what is more annoying- the troublemakers, the self-anointed hall monitors, or the people who have decided it is their job to personally take on the trolls with multiple posts calling them out, because they are some Luke Skywalker hero shit. I just want to punch every god damned one of you in the neck.

This is the fucking internet. People say offensive shit. Most of us cope and move on. For some reason, some of you need to stir shit up, and some of you simply can not stop help yourself from responding. You guys are the fucking problem, not the rest of us.

And why do I have to do this every three fucking months? Stop being douche bags. Fuckers.

Open Thread

I just saw a preview of the Pets of Balloon Juice 2012 calendar, and I think you all are going to love it!

Commenters Behaving Badly

I don’t know why anyone should ever have to mention this or deal with it, but I just deleted a couple of comments in ABL’s Naomi Wolfe thread.  Two different commenter names, two different email addresses, both pushing the same theme, the same IP address for both.  If you can’t make your point without resorting to sock puppetry, you don’t have anything worthwhile to say.

Site Problems

A lot of you have pointed out the change.org thing was messing up the screen, so I removed it. Are there any other minor problems that need to be addressed?

Open Thread: Rogue FYWP Alert

I just looked at the top layer of the spam filter, and half a dozen regular commentors had been “sin binned” for perfectly unobjectionable comments about gardening, pet nutrition, Star Trek nostalgia, and which team deserved to win.

Apparently FYWP is in one of its random mucker phases. I’ll keep checking for How-the-Hell-could-that-get-called-Spam, but if you’re worried about your comments disappearing, my email address is AnneLaurie at verizon dot net (or click on my name near the top of the right-hand column).

P.S. Please don’t email Cole, I don’t think he can fix FYWP’s tantrum either.