Sorry for the outages, and we will be moving to a new platform in the next month or so, and we need to discuss what kind of platform to move to, becuase I am clueless. Some of you have suggested scoop. I only have several requirements:
Better performance
The ability to import the archives
Ease of use for the user
The ability to use video, audio, and polls
And comments that will not be rated (I hate it when comments are troll rated)
For now, though, we will have to deal with the Denial of Service attacks from the Great Orange Satan. Bastard.
PeterJ
Reject and denounce. It’s that simple.
Just Some Fuckhead
No registration to comment either please.
Billy K
Don’t worry – the worst is over. All the hippies are out smoking their dopes in celebration of 2:40.
P.S. I hear Geocities is pretty good.
johninpt
Death to Word Press!
Krista
I love the layout and the comment interface here. I don’t like the Kos-style threaded, indented comments. If you can keep the look and feel of the site the same, while just increasing the performance, then I’ll be a happy camper.
demimondian
B-b-but…I *want* to be thought of as a troll! Around here, being rated as “troll” is high praise, isn’t it?
nightjar
I want to second that greatly. The layout here is by far the best I’ve experienced and would be a shame to alter it much, or at all.
Billy K
That would mean we like p.uk, myiq1/2u and this new kwak person.
I would think we value fake trolls around here.
(OK, I hold out some hope myiq can come to his (?) senses, but the others…)
jake
Thirding Krista and looking forward to the new site.
If you could add something that sends an electric shock to the keyboards of the non-link-embedding islamofascists that would be awesome.
SnarkyShark
Become assimilated with the Great Orange Borg.
Resistance is futile.
Cain
We obviously need to add sockpuppet and spoof ratings as well, and maybe “dork”. It’s hard to carry the rating of “dork” proudly unlike “troll”.
I think a lot of people would like editable posts. I’m not familiar with blog software, so I don’t know what is a good one. What about textpattern?
cain
cleek
yeah, the current layout here is nice.
threaded comments are nice in theory, but all the blogging/forum software gets them wrong. the only threaded comments that i like are those at Code Project, and that’s not really a blog – it’s more of a perpetual open-thread. so, put me down as another vote against threaded comments.
cbear
I have a suggestion: How ’bout a 30′ meter diving platform—over a pool of hydrochloric acid, with Great White Sharks swimming in it?
Cause that’s what a lot of us are going to need if this Clinton primary shit keeps up much longer.
Ninerdave
Yes threaded comments suck. Diaries would be fun considering the crowd that gathers here.
CrazyDrumGuy
Oh too bad. I really like WordPress. Unfortunately, Hater-in-Chief Kos owns this site with his orange links of doom.
Keith
I’d recommend going over to Scobleizer and asking Robert Scoble what he’s using. He’s likely familiar with your blog, and as a (former?) blogging evangelist who keeps very up-to-date with related technologies as well as platforms, he can steer you in a good direction or at least tell you what he’s using these days.
Plus he’s extremely easy to reach and excellent about responding to nearly everyone.
Rick Taylor
Is there a way to make word press work? I remember someone here posting that you could get software that cached things and made it work better.
Punchy
I’ve had to issue a Denial of Being Serviced before.
Billy K
Good point. I vote we go with whatever Glorious Leader Kos says we go with.
Jeff
Have you thought about Drupal?
Thunderous Touch
Scoble is using WordPress with wp-cache installed.
jake
There, there. Have some pie.
kwAwk
I think it serves you right for hiring Joe Lieberman’s IT people to maintain your blog. Tsk tsk tsk.
So what is the going definition of troll on this blog? Anybody who isn’t an O-bot?
protected static
Someone mentioned Drupal – there’s also Joomla. My (still superficial) impression of the 2 is that Joomla has a more complete feature set, while Drupal is more user-friendly from an admin and setup POV.
Still – it seems like most of your problems are host-related, not necessarily software-related, John.
croatoan
Check out ExpressionEngine.
CrazyDrumGuy
The blog software that this blog uses seems to work well under pressure. Highly recommended.
John Cole
Shrug. I just want to make sure I have comments so that when someone makes a comment, it stays, and is not troll rated out of existence.
Cain
It might be more related to machine as well. If loading is the problem changing the software won’t matter too much, it’ll just be able to take a bit more punishment before crashing :) You’ll need something better in terms of a machine, maybe not have your database on the same machine as your blog software and other improvements. Stuff like that. (just guesses, I don’t do web stuff)
Is Pajamas helping out here or what?
I like the diaries stuff too.. but bit a leary as I like to keep the site small and personal like it is now. GOS has way too many people on it.. and I’ve come to think of you guys as brothers and sisters in arms.
cain
Delia
That’s actually the reason I generally stay away from GOS. There are always 500 comments on a thread by the time I look at it, and plowing through all that is way too tedious.
Billy K
So you’re worried your own readers would troll rate you?
passerby
Fourthing Krista’s comment.
I find this comment format so much easier to read than others.
As an example of what not to have see Huffpo comments. They are horrific as the thread jumps and sidetracks and when the page renews…well the thread is just so fucked up.
I like the chronological order. It allows for those who join in late to refer back and not just jump into the head of the thread.
In fact I’m going to paypal right now and throw $20 bucks at you in a weak attempt to buy your vote for the Krista Plan.
T
Grumpy Code Monkey
My only request is that the preview and actual submission bear more than a passing resemblance to each other. I get frustrated when something looks good in the preview, but for whatever reason gets rendered differently in the actual post.
Velvet Elvis
You don’t want scoop. It’s basically a dying platform. It’s also a pain to modify and sucks on the performance front.
Consider Movable Type. If you don’t want to mess with the hosting side of things, look at TypePad.
You can get as much mileage out of wordpress as any of the other free php blogware. The performance issues stem from server configuration.
Cris
Maybe John should take a cue from Lowtax and allow people to apply labels to other users, for a small donation.
Fuck that noise. I’m sick of sites made up of a zillion mini-blogs. Making your own blog is free, pimping it in the comments is free, and you maintain your own identity.
lutton
scoop? Isn’t that used for community (diary) style site? Is that what you’re considering? Balloon Juices?
Open Left built their site on SoapBlox. I always think Chris Bowers has a good eye for these things, but again, like scoop it’s a community platform.
Duncan (Atrios) recently moved his site to a separate eponymous domain, but it’s still the old blogger site we all love to hate (or is it hate to love?).
kwAwk
John Cole Says:
Well, all of us who are considered to be ‘trolls’ or ‘fake trolls’ or ‘Republican shills” and ‘spoofs’ appreciate that.
Cain
Oh yeah, we need a good search feature as well so that we can look up individual comments. Looking for particular phases or quotes is difficult.
cain
Cain
Agreed, otherwise we’d just get an echo chamber. Half the fun is cutting people like kwawk down to size. I refer once again to the Airplane! scene with the hysterical woman. Eating trolls is healthy and good for all of us.
cain
HankP
John –
I tried send this to you as an email, but apparently the “email John” link isn’t working.
I helped design and maintain the site http://www.theforvm.org, we use Drupal for our blog software and have been pretty happy with it. It’s free open source software, with all the good (free, well designed, some spiffy features) and the bad (lousy documentation) that goes along with it. It also has many different looks or “themes” available, you can check some out here – http://themegarden.org. My experience as a computer professional (but not a programmer) is that it’s fairly easy to install, very easy to maintain and has a lot of nice features available. It is important to find a hosting site that explicitly supports it, ideally you’d want one that supports Apache 2, MySQL 5 and PHP 5.
Drop me a line if you’re interested in more information, or visit http://drupal.org. I’d be happy to fill you in on our experiences.
Keith
Wow, I didn’t know that. I don’t remember the last time I’ve seen his site down…
tattoosydney
But wasn’t today’s outage Sullivan’s fault?
Maybe the GPS (Great Pink Satan)?
InquisitiveRaven
Ha-ha! If you’d stop writing such awesome posts, kos wouldn’t link to it!
Lower the standards, dudes! ;)
Warren Terra
I seem to be in a distinct minority in this thread, but I like threaded comments, and the ability to spot when people reply to my comments.
On the other hand, I also hate having to create an account and log in to post comments – there are advantages (reduced spoofing, mostly), but it’s a serious disincentive to new and occasional commenters (and that’s ignoring the stuff I’m ignorant about, with respect to the need to maintain all those accounts).
Frankly, the current set-up without the Denial Of Service problem would be fine.
Jennyjinx
I suggest WordPress with WP-SuperCache installed. Survives being slashdotted, Digged and, quite possibly, being Kos’d. It’s cheap, easy, and you can take your comments with you if you decide to go with something else.
Krista
Jaysus. I was thirded, fourthed, and now I have my very own Plan?
A lot has happened between this beer and my previous one.
I agree with the kibosh in diaries, though. I find Kos a complete muddle, and no matter how much I wade through it, I know I’m probably missing something — something that could very well have been interesting and worth the read. Here, it’s simple, elegant, and easy to keep track of the posts and the comments.
(I still want you to change your logo so that Tunch is in the basket of that hot-air balloon, though. Email me a good photo of Tunch, and I’ll send you a mockup.)
Just Some Fuckhead
What Warren said. I think everyone’s cool with the site like it is John. You just need to install WP-Cache, maybe upgrade your hosting and stop provoking Kos.
PeterJ
Add me to the ones that like this design. Also, I’m not in favor of threaded comments, registration, and being able to troll rate.
And since no one has mentioned it, a pop up window for comments is something I find really annoying.
And there must be a working pie script for the new design :)
Rick Taylor
I think it’s just uproariously funny that you’ve gone from being a right wing war supporting blogger to a favorite read of the Great Orange Satan himself. Quite a transition.
Just Some Fuckhead
Let’s not forget that Kos himself was a war supporting right-winger not too long ago. Not this war, but still..
rachel
Hear, hear!
Birdzilla
Then a bunyip ate the dingoes
Bob UK
Phew, welcome back.
last night i was all: oh my god they killed BJ !
My american fix is back!
Conservatively Liberal
Regarding the ratings, thank you very much John. I HATE those rating systems, so much that I refuse to participate anywhere they are used. I can take praise or criticism in print and that is the way it should be, but to get either given or taken via ‘mojo points’ is childish. I can almost picture people standing around taking in real life saying ‘+1’ or ‘-1’ in response to something someone says. Yeah, real great feedback. I don’t post to score points, I post to speak my mind. Some at Kos post specifically to gain points and it lessens the site.
Kos sucks specifically because of that and the ‘hidden’ comments crap. I am an adult, and I don’t need someone to ‘filter’ what is being said for my safety or the sites purity. Let something someone says rise or fall on its own merits, we are not children and we can deal with it.
Again, thank you John.
Conservatively Liberal
The ability to embed images would be nice as I have a bullshit meter I like to use on my forums when the need arises (and it does). Plus a good selection of sick emoticons would be nice. I have a great collection if you are interested. They really help to get a point across…lol ;)
Maybe a feature for you to turn off image embedding for jerks who abuse it, as I can see that happening. I agree with others here, the format is fine. Diaries suck, people can make their own blog if they want and as said above, shamelessly pimp it here.
vbdietz
Actually it was Andrew Sullivan and Markos linking to the same post that probably caused the DOS problem. And it was most likely a server webhosting traffic bottleneck problem as opposed to the particular software.
Either Movable Type or Drupal would be good alternatives. Soapblox is built on a derivative of Scoop and hence has threaded and rateable comments though I suspect you could choose to turn those options off.
What is good about Soapblox is that it is a hosted alternative and someone else is responsible for making sure the server load is balanced and accessible. The same type of service is available for Movable Type and Drupal.
Last but not least, the option suggested by several of sticking with WordPress but adding the WP-Supercache seems like the biggest bang for the buck.
You would still need to check into the hosting / traffic issues. Presuming that the website is on a shared server somewhere, if that server isn’t capable of supporting high traffic-count spikes then changing the software isn’t going to help at all with the type of problem experienced on Thursday and Friday.
Feel free to email me if you want other input into selecting an alternative platform.