Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

And we’re all out of bubblegum.

Saul Alinsky is my co-pilot

Han shot first.

Mission Accomplished!

Peak wingnut was a lie.

Shock troops for the Unitarian Jihad.

Wetsuit optional.

Where tasty lettuce and good mustard aren’t elitist.

I showered with Rahm and all I got was this shitty blog.

What fresh hell is this?

This is a big f—–g deal.

I thought we were promised Infrastructure Week

Hot Air and Ill Informed Banter

Also, too.

No one could have predicted…

This blog is Obama’s Katrina.

Women: They Get Shit Done

Gastritis Broke My Calculator

Too inconsequential to be sued

Dinky Hocker Shoots Smack!

This is how realignments happen…

Militantly superior in their own minds…

Technically true, but collectively nonsense.

Is it irresponsible to speculate? It is irresponsible not to.

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Site Maintenance

The (Blog) Doctor Is In. Tell Me What Ails You.

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Hey everybody!

John will tell me this is crazy – never ask people for complaints!  In fact, if Cole were Leroy Jethro Gibbs, that would be Rule 1-15.

But, even it it is crazy or stupid, I feel the need to do it anyway because I plan to have a conversation with the developers this week about any issues that remain, so I need to be clear about what those issues are, how frequently they occur, and just how many people are being affected by them.

My Girlfriend on the Side

To reiterate, my primary goals are to determine the following:

·  What problems remain?

·  How frequently do they occur?

·  How many people are affected by each issue?

If you you talk about an existing issue in the comments, it will be most helpful if you include the Identifier, eg A-1 or B-3. 

Confirmed That these Issues Have Been Resolved (yay!)

  •  A-1.  Sometimes comments do not show up until a manual refresh, or multiple manual refreshes.
  •  A-2.  Sometimes people lose the ability to Edit their comments.
  •  A-3.  Sometimes people bounce to the top after making a comment.

Top Tier Issues That I am Currently Aware Of

  •  B-1.  Clicking @nym in a reply no longer anchors you in the way that clicking the date/time stamp anchors you.
  •  B-2.  Back arrow no longer reliably takes you even one step back.  The back arrow took you back many steps during testing before the rollout.
  •  B-3.  When clicking on Reply, sometimes @nym does not show up in the popup reply box.

Second Tier Issues That I am Currently Aware Of

  •  C-1.  Visual and text tabs are not always visible; when that happens it defaults to text with no tabs showing. (Question: is that true in the comment box only or also in the reply popup?)
  •  C-2.  Recent comments not updating properly for just a few people.

More Obscure Issues That I am Currently Aware Of

  •  D-1.  Titles with quotation marks: open quote is correct; close quote is missing or shows as an apostrophe. (Google Font Library Issue)
  •  D-2.  Balloon Juice pages resize after/while loading.
  •  D-3.  RSS issues with SharpReader.
  •  D-4.  Line spacing in text mode adds an extra line between the final two lines.  (Firefox issue)
  •  D-5.  Strange problem with videos in Safari – when trying to enlarge videos to full screen, instead the entire web page enlarges to full screen.
  •  D-6.  The navigation bar items (comment, refresh, & arrows) at the top are not working most of the time (one person Sony Xperia X: Firefox)
  •  D-7.  Nym and email not sticking for one person (I have sent email asking if private browsing or no cookies is a possibility, but no reply yet.)
  •  D-8.  One-time Safari phone problem, the site suddenly rendered as a long blank page.
  •  D-9.  Twitter embeds not showing up in posts in Firefox (may be a configuration issue).

These Should Never Happen (If this ever happens to you, please share details below)

  •  E-1.  You should never be able to post an identical comment that has already been posted.
  •  E-2.  Comments should never get eaten for no reason.  Please report it if that happens, so I an look into it.)

I was going to post this later this evening, but since posting is light this afternoon, I thought maybe earlier would be better.

Edit: I kind of have a crush on John’s new girlfriend, so I used her for the image.

The (Blog) Doctor Is In. Tell Me What Ails You.Post + Comments (191)

Dear WaterGirl: When is the Best Time for Pie?

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Dear Watergirl,

Is it wrong to use the Pie Filter?  Does it make me a bad person?

Dear Of Course It’s Not Wrong,

Why would you even think that?   Of course it’s not wrong to use the pie filter.  There’s only so much time in a day. There’s nothing wrong with using the pie filter for commenters whose comments you don’t want to read, unless that feels wrong to you, or it goes against your principles.

Even if it goes against your principles to pie commenters that you simply don’t care for, or whose comments aren’t of interest to you, there’s absolutely no reason to feel bad about pie-ing some whose primary goal is trolling or what I call “shit-stirring”.  Use the pie filter for them!

Dear WaterGirl,

I tried the pie filter, just for a minute, so I could see the pie images and the quotes.  Now I’m hooked, and I’m tempted to use the pie filter just for fun.

Dear Oh My Goodness, Please Don’t Worry about That!

I mean, seriously, have you seen CatCake?  Who could resist CatCake?  Or the dessert-related quotes… I spent a lot of time looking for the quotes and those images!  Just think of using the pie filter as a kindness, so I know they are appreciated.

If that’s not enough to help you feel good about it, think about John.  He paid good money for the pie filter programming.  With updates!  You now have a choice of images, quotes, or nothing, plus it’s super easy to pie, and to un-pie, and to change the settings.  And if you’re up for a really bold move, you can use the pie filter just because it’s a day ending in ‘Y’!

Dear WaterGirl,

I know i shouldn’t engage with trolls, and I tell myself I won’t make that mistake the next time; I will just ignore them!  But then I do it anyway.  I get pulled in, thinking that I can change their mind, or that it’s important to refute what they say, so it doesn’t just hang there like the lie they just said is true.  I’m doing a service for all of us, and that’s a good thing, right?

Dear I’m Really Sorry to Have to be the One to Tell You,

We all understand the instinct, but engaging isn’t helpful.  It just encourages them, and derails the threads.  The pie filter can help!  You can pie the shit-stirrers and trolls, and reduce the temptation to engage with them.  Plus, it will save you money on meds, because it will help keep your blood pressure down!  Then you can treat yourself to some real live dessert, just for being so good!

Dear WaterGirl,

Some of the regular commenters don’t seem to be posting anymore.  It makes me sad and I feel so frustrated, isn’t there anything I can do?

Dear That Bothers Me Too,

I wish I had a better answer, but the only thing I know how to do is to make sure that I’m not personally involved in turning what would otherwise be a good thread into a steaming pile of you-know-what, or scorched earth.  At Balloon Juice, we are not the enemy. Well, except for the people who are here to stir shit and sow discord.  As far as I’m concerned, we owe nothing to those people; they are not actually part of the BJ community.

What I know is that we have to preserve our collective sanity for the Big Fight of 2020: Saving Our Democracy.  Like it or not, that’s the fight we are in,.  One part of that fight is making sure we’re not driving good people away with our infighting.  One tiny part of that can be using the pie filter, if that’s what it takes to not get sucked into the vortex of people who are on Balloon Juice – not for the politics and pets and food and garden chats or to share our favorite mysteries – but to do harm.

I don’t know that we have to Be Best.  But I do think we need to Be Smart.

***

Discuss:

What has the pie filter done for you lately?

Why is the pie filter worse than Satan?

Why you love CatCake almost as much as I do.

Dear WaterGirl: Did You Know That...

 

Dear WaterGirl: When is the Best Time for Pie?Post + Comments (310)

Site Update: The Updating

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Is this a good time for a site update?

Those of you who aren’t sick in bed (or rocking in the corner because of current events) may have noticed the site behaving a bit better than it had been.

We made some programming changes on Friday, and the issue isn’t entirely resolved, but we’ve gone 36 hours without the 502/524 issue occurring, so that’s encouraging.

In addition to the programming changes made at the end of last week, we asked the front pagers to only log in to WordPress when they were creating or editing their posts.  What was the reason for that? It’s because there are things that WordPress does in the background when someone is logged in, and they were contributing to the problem – even if the person has walked away from their computer or has left for the day.

Anyway.. that was Phase 1, and the purpose was to provide a baseline to evaluate the programming changes that were made.  Phase 1 ended a few minutes ago.

Phase 2 starts right now, where it’s actually helpful if front pagers stay logged in!  That way we can evaluate the impact that 15 people being logged in to WordPress has on the 502/524 issue.

So it’s quite possible that we could see an increase in the frequency of the 502/524 error.  Or we might not!  What’s important for you to know is that it is not necessarily a bad thing if that happens.  Yes, it will be an inconvenience for that 20 minutes.

But either way – whether the frequency increases or it doesn’t – that will tell us a lot about whether login habits have an impact on the 502/524 error, now that some programming changes have been made.

It’s also true that posting was extremely light this weekend, and traffic probably won’t get back to normal until everyone is back to their regular schedule after New Years, so that’s another variable.  But that’s not one we can control.

I simply cannot imagine that people would actually read and comment at Ballon Juice while at work, but there are actually people who believe that is true!  Really, they do!

Speak up in the comments if you don’t care to hear about details like this and would prefer more general updates in the future.  And speak up if you do like to know.  As always, we aim to please!

Adding a flower, because it looks so happy, and it’s a very gloomy weather day here.

Plus, it’s one more way for you guys to learn about what images show up where.

My tree is the “featured image” and, well, you can see for yourself that this flower is visible in the post.

Site Update: The UpdatingPost + Comments (62)

Dear WaterGirl: So Many Image Questions!

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Dear Watergirl,

Does Tunch show up on every post, everywhere?  It seems like I see him a lot.  He’s the perfect choice, so I’m not complaining!  I’m just trying to make sense of it.

Dear Just Trying to Understand,

No, Tunch is not on every post.  That awesome picture of Tunch is the default for some things, but not for everything.

Dear WaterGirl,

I see images everywhere, even in places where I didn’t know they existed!  Imagine my surprise the other day when I saw an image when I clicked on one of the wings to take me to another thread.  Where else might I see images?

Dear Surprised,

I may not be able to think of all of them at the moment, but I’ll give it a try.  Sometimes there are images in the post.  Sometimes there are images that show up in the the wings, and it’s not even a picture that’s anywhere in the post.  There are images on Twitter feeds, images on Facebook.  Images that show up with a post in a RSS Reader.  If I think of any more, I’ll add them in later.

Dear WaterGirl,

What’s up with images on the new site?  I don’t understand the logic of what images we see where.  Are you using some kind of image randomizer just to mess with us?

Dear What’s Up With Images,

I would never do that!  But this is a classic example of a situation where if you know the rules, it makes total sense.  But if don’t know the rules?  It’s difficult to reverse engineer and figure out what the rules are.  The short story is that it’s pretty much up to the front pagers to determine what pictures show up where.

Dear WaterGirl,

If everybody doesn’t have to use the same images, and front pagers can do what they want…

Could Cheryl always use that map I’ve seen a couple of times?
Could Betty use a picture of Badger?
Could Mayhew use an abacus?
Could Tom use a printing press?
Could TaMara use a duck?

Dear My, You Have Given This a Lot of Thought!

Yes, if they wanted to, each front pager could have a standard featured image on most or all of their posts, that could be a brand, of sorts.  Their posts would be known by the company they keep could be easily recognizable from the image that shows up.

Dear WaterGirl,

I saw that a couple of commenters had added an image directly into their comment, and they weren’t even front pagers.  How come they get to do that and I can not?!  It’s not fair!  Or can we all do that, and I just don’t know how?

Dear It’s Not Fair!

Only front pagers can add images in the comments.  That’s the plan, anyway!  I turns out that we have some clever commenters who like to test the boundaries, and sometimes they find a way around things. That’s okay, that just helps us make the site more secure.  They find ‘em, we block ‘em. :-)

THAT’S ALL THE LETTERS FOR TODAY.  I’LL CONTINUE TO DO THIS FOR A BIT UNTIL EVERYBODY IS UP TO SPEED.

Please feel free to snack on some cake while you read.

Dear WaterGirl: So Many Image Questions!Post + Comments (120)

Apparently the Website Is Asphyxiating On Its Own Vomit

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In a completely predictable series of events, immediately after rattling the cup to defray server costs last night, the website immediately began shitting the bed and we had probably a dozen short outages over the last 20 hours. Rest assured, we are working on a solution.

It’s not the cloudflare configuration or not enough space or anything like this, and nothing that throwing money at can fix. The problem is basically (and will always be) this- WordPress was not designed to have an archive of eleventy billion comments, so some of the coding messes with this website but leaves virtually every other WP website untouched. You’ve heard, no doubt, of the different meanings of the phrase “the exception that proves the rule,” well, we are ALWAYS going to be the exception.

In this case, there is a query that involves going through every single comment (again, for the god damned recent comments thing that you all love so much and I have NEVER used), and it just blows up the site. Here’s a picture:

Apparently the Website Is Asphyxiating On Its Own Vomit

Basically, that query needs to be rewritten, but it can not be rewritten solely for this website, it is going to need to involve the WP developers, and it has to be done in a way that won’t jack up the millions of other websites that use WP but DON’T have our unique situation. So we are working on it. Basically, the recent comments may disappear temporarily so we can confirm that that is in fact the case.

To continue the grotesque metaphor, we have gone through five sets of sheets and are now putting a plastic cover on the mattress and handing out adult diapers until we can get some immodium or get to a doctor.

The End.

Apparently the Website Is Asphyxiating On Its Own VomitPost + Comments (113)

Rattling the Cup for Server Costs

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As you know, we moved to a different hosting company and now have significantly larger hosting costs for the server. Additionally, we went basically a month without any ad revenue because we took a week or so off, put ads up for two days, then got denied because we are a bunch of foul mouthed heathens, then a few weeks later got ads up from an ad company with standards more in line with ours. As such, there was a significant decline in revenue for the past five weeks (read, basically none). The server is paid through the 1st of January, but then we will owe another payment.

Several of you have signed up for recurring monthly donations, and that adds up to about 75 bucks a month, but we are still well short of costs. So, if you can, and only if you can, please consider hitting the paypal link to the right.

Thank you!

OOOH YEAH! I went to the PO Box today and there was a nice package of dog treats for the doggos from one of you generous bastards, as well as a bunch of damned fine looking jams and jellies from Alain! Thank you!

Rattling the Cup for Server CostsPost + Comments (61)

Site Maintenance Update

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The website is being moved to a bigger server with twice the processors and 1.5 times the memory. We’re still 2-3 times as fast as the old site prior to the relaunch, but they want to move us to a bigger one. What that means for all of you is that the server will be down for a spell (30 mins to an hour) this evening after ten pm.

So don’t freak the hell out.

Site Maintenance UpdatePost + Comments (116)

One Month Out: Last Call on Site Rollout Issues

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The new site rolled out a month ago, and I’d like to get a feel for where things stand in terms of any remaining problems with the way the site functions.  Please keep in mind that no site will ever be perfect, and please also note that we are not asking for design suggestions at this stage of the game.

The goal is to get the remaining rollout issues resolved soon.

This is your opportunity to make sure your site problems are represented on the “Remaining Issues from Rollout” List.  I want to be sure that all ssues related to function are on the list, so please speak up now.  Feel free to also pepper the comments with things you like, lest it start to feel that everyone hates everything!

I am not certain whether some of these might the same issue, just being described in different ways.  Or perhaps they are different behaviors but they only happen when one of these other things happen?  

I am hoping to get clarity on that from all of you in this thread:  The more details and patterns that I can describe for any problem, the easier it is to resolve the problem.  So things like “yes, this happens to me, but maybe only once or twice a week”, or “it only happens when I use this browser and not the browser” will be especially useful.

If just one or two people are having a problem, that may be related to particular device/browser combinations, or even browser settings, so part of what I hope to accomplish with this post is to get a sense of the scope of any remaining issues.

Commenting

A.  Posted comments don’t always show up as soon as you post them, until a manual refresh.

B.  Bounce to the top of the thread after submitting a comment.

E.  Edit Comment is not always available after posting comment.

Are A, B, and E all different ways of describing the same issue?  Are they related in some way?

Do B and C only happen when your comment does appear immediately after posting?

Edit Comments

TV.  Text / Visual tabs aren’t consistently and reliably there.

Is this related to creating a comment?  Editing a comment?  Or both?

When do they go missing?  Do they stay missing?  Is it a now you see them, now you don’t kind of thing?

Navigation

N.  Back Arrow doesn’t take you back through a series of steps, as it should

If you have noticed any patterns, please share what you have noticed.

Scrambled Comments Just after Multiples of Ten

aka Comments Overwritten
aka Comment Sandwich
aka Overlapping Comments

Is anyone still seeing this behavior now that the ads have started?

Recent Comments

RC.  One person is reporting problems with Recent Comments

Is anyone else having this issue?  If so, please describe it in the comments.

Replies

R.   Only one person is reporting that they sometimes don’t get @nym when they hit the reply button.

Is anyone else having this issue?  If so, please describe it in the comments.

RSS Feed

RSS.   Only one person is reporting issues with the RSS feed.

Is anyone else having an issue with the RSS feed?

Wings for Previous Post / Next Post

Sometimes we have Post titles with special formatting: italics, strikethrough, etc.
This causes “interesting” formatting issues in the wings.
As long as there is special formatting in the titles, the wings are going to do that.
To do otherwise would involve non-trivial programming that we’re not prepared to ask for.

Have I missed anything?  It will be super helpful if you refer to an item with its initial/s as you speak about it in the comments.

It’s also useful if you note if you do not have the problems listed.

Update 5:30 pm Saturday: I’m going to keep checking back on this thread throughout the weekend, so input will be included from everyone who posts by 7am on Monday morning.

One Month Out: Last Call on Site Rollout IssuesPost + Comments (303)

Dear WaterGirl: Did You Know…

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Dear WaterGirl,

I just travelled around the world in my hot air balloon, and now that I am back, I’m wondering if you guys made any changes to the new site while I was gone.

Dear Wow, That’s Amazing!

And here I thought we had accomplished a lot this week!  Let’s see… We switched from the lovely blue-green-gray background on block quotes to a possibly-more lovely blue outline with a shadow.  People seem to like that a lot; hopefully you will, too.

We increased the size of the space you get when you press RETURN, so we think people won’t feel the need to press RETURN twice between their paragraphs.  That should go a long way toward decreasing extra white space we’ve been seeing.

We also made a change to the comment numbers; they are a bit smaller and should size better on all devices.  (Bye-bye tiny little numbers on phones!)  Oh, and we changed the pie filter font that you see when you select quotes instead of images.

Dear WaterGirl,

What about the loyal On the Road people?  What have you done for us lately??  Writing not just for myself, you understand, but for all of us.

Dear On the Road Peeps,

Well, let’s see.  We moved On the Road from Featuring in the sidebar to the category bar at the top.  We hope that was a nice surprise! But we took away something, too; we hope you won’t mind.  You won’t see duplicate images anymore when the most recent post on Balloon Juice happens to be an On the Road post.  Going forward, you’ll just have to be satisfied with a single copy of all those gorgeous images.

Dear WaterGirl,

Have there been any changes that would specifically affect front pagers?  We love change!

Dear Front Pagers,

At long last, we added a plugin for filtering Categories and Snark to the Classic Editor, so those of you who don’t typically use the Block Editor won’t have to go to the Dark Side for ease of adding categories and snark to posts.

Dear WaterGirl,

Are there any little things we might want to know, that we may not know already?

Dear Inquiring Minds…

Yes!  That’s an excellent question!

Did you know you can make the comment box longer, so you can see your entire comment, even if it’s long?  Just drag the little thingie (technical term) that’s at the bottom of the comment box until it’s the size you want.  The little thingie is to the right of the little P that people ask about, and it works in the Reply box as well as in the comment box at the bottom.

Speaking of the little P, what does it do?  P stands for Paragraph, so it’s saying you are in Paragraph mode.  If you put your cursor inside a blockquote, it will say P and Blockquote.  If something is in color, it will say P and Span (which indicates color).

Speaking of white space… the block quote feature automatically adds space around the outline of the quote, so now if you add an extra line manually, either above the quote or after it, you get a boatload of extra white space.

The RSS feed now includes the name of the BJ author, but that won’t show up in your old feed; in order to see it, you have to subscribe again.

Sometimes we refer to a location for something on the site as if that location is true for everybody.  (I am definitely guilty of this!)  For instance, the Pet Calendar Info is located at top right on the site, but only for computers and for tablets that are in landscape mode.  Tablets in portrait mode, and phones, will show that under the hamburger. (aka the 3 lines located top right on a phone)  The same is true when we talk about the sidebar – that’s only true on computers and tablets in landscape – on a phone, or a tablet in portrait mode, that’s all located after the comment window at the bottom.

THAT’S ALL THE LETTERS FOR TODAY.  I’LL CONTINUE TO DO THIS FOR A BIT UNTIL EVERYBODY IS UP TO SPEED.

 

Dear WaterGirl: Did You Know…Post + Comments (66)

It Wasn’t Balloon Juice

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Just a quick programming note to say that the site interruptions this evening were not the result of a problem with our site – they were the result of problems way further up the networking chain. So there’s that, at least!

Since John thinks that all/most/some of us are insufferable pricks who complain all the time, maybe you guys can use this thread to comment about the things you do like about the new site?

Surely there must be something!

It Wasn’t Balloon JuicePost + Comments (125)

Dear WaterGirl: Featuring… Featuring!

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It may be true that you can’t always get what you want, but sometimes you do.

Recent changes/fixes:

  1. external websites automatically open in a new tab

Frequent Questions loosely taken from the Balloon Juice Mailbag (aka Site Feedback)

Dear WaterGirl,

Not to be rude, or anything, but what’s the point of Featuring?  Oh, hell, it’s Balloon Juice and we’re like family, so I’ll just say it straight up.  There’s the Featuring section, there’s View by Topic, and there’s the Category Bar at the top – aren’t they all pretty much the same thing?  Why do we have all of those? What were you thinking?  Were you even thinking?

Dear Thank You For Asking So Politely,

What’s the thinking behind Featuring?  For one thing, we want the featured items to be timely.

It’s ACA Open Enrollment, so David Anderson is linked under Featuring.  When Tom Levenson’s next book comes out, Tom will be featured.  But you don’t need to be a writer, or be nationally known, to be in Featuring. On the Road is featured right now, because we want everyone to be able to easily find their beloved On the Road posts until they learn the other easy ways to find them.

Featuring has a lot of potential, I think.  Any author, future or past, can be featured.  Any topic, any subcategory, or even sub-subcategory can be featured at some point, when the timing is right.

Besides the timeliness factor, we want to call attention to some of the fun and eclectic things we talk about here, or things you wouldn’t necessarily know about if you didn’t read every thread, every day. First up will surely be the addition of duck blogging, which makes it likely that one of the existing items will be swapped out.  But hey, it’s Penelope; we all have to make sacrifices for the greater good.

Dear WaterGirl,

What’s in Featuring right this minute?
How often will it change?
Is it the same as it was yesterday?
What about tomorrow?

Dear Wow, You Have a Lot of Questions,

There will typically be 5 links under Featuring at any given time.  John Cole is timeless, so I am making him stay there forever.  Translation: I told John that as Blog Lord, I thought he should always be in the #1 slot forever, and he grudgingly agreed.  Or, alternatively, John wasn’t paying any attention to what I was saying, which could mean that he has no idea that he agreed to that!  But I digress.

Aside from the timelines factor, Featuring will almost never include a top-level category; it’s intended to call attention to particular authors or to subcategories that are fun, or interesting, or that might never see the light of day otherwise, unless you happened upon them in a front page post.  But, because rules are made to be broken, there are two top-level categories under Featuring right now.

What’s in Featuring right this minute?  Check for yourself in the sidebar, under Featuring!

How often will it change?  Featured links (except John) will change over time, generally every month or so, but some will change in a hot minute based on what is happening around us.

Is Featuring the same today as it was yesterday?  No, it is not!  I swapped out “Impeachment Inquiry” and added the more specific “Impeachment Hearings”.  We had a hundred front page posts on the hearings, so it seemed appropriate.  I added “Dear WaterGirl” after several people repeatedly asked me to put website posts in an easy to find spot.  That will be swapped out once it’s no longer timely.

What will be in Featuring tomorrow?  We’ll have to see what tomorrow brings.

Dear WaterGirl.

I had so many questions, I couldn’t get them all in with my first letter!
Who gets to decide what’s in Featuring?
Who decides when it changes?

Dear Oh My Gosh, You Still Have More Questions!

This is perhaps best answered with a story.

For years, I had two dogs: Murphy, my cocker spaniel and AC, who looked like a big, black bear.  I have no idea where the name AC came from or how to spell it, because he was left behind when a coworker’s neighbors packed up the kids, the car, the cat, and the other dog – and drove off, leaving AC behind when they moved to California.  Bastards!  The least I could do was let him keep his name.

AC and Murphy would race down the hall when I threw the ball; it was anybody’s guess who would get to the ball first.  If AC got there first, sometimes Murphy would take the ball right out of AC’s mouth, and friends thought my cocker was the alpha dog.  Nope!  AC knew he was the big dog, and he didn’t need to prove it to anyone.  On the rare occasions when it really mattered to him, AC always got his way.

Cole is like my beloved dog, A/C, and I mean that as the ultimate compliment.  So who gets to decide what’s in Featuring?  I imagine that will be me, most of the time. With, I hope, input from all of you.  But when John has an opinion, I will surely know about it, and John is the big dog.

Dear WaterGirl,

What if I have a great idea for something that could be featured under, well, Featuring?  Do I have to keep it to myself, a potentially great idea that will never see the light of day?  That could be lost forever? That would be terrible!

Dear Funny You Should Ask,

I would love to hear your ideas!  Even if you post your suggestions in a comment, please make sure to also send an email message to my WaterGirl account at Balloon Juice.

THAT’S ALL THE LETTERS FOR TODAY.  I’LL CONTINUE TO DO THESE UNTIL EVERYBODY IS UP TO SPEED.

Dear WaterGirl: Featuring… Featuring!Post + Comments (47)

Dear WaterGirl: Comments, Cash, and Transparency, Oh My!

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It may be true that you can’t always get what you want, but sometimes you do.

List of new changes/fixes to the new site:

  1. Flyouts/wings/previous post button changes
  2. Added “Show full post on front page” for posts that hide what is below the fold
  3. # of comments has been added to the Post + Comments button
  4. external websites automatically open in a new tab

Frequent Questions from the Balloon Juice Mailbag (aka Site Feedback)

Dear WaterGirl,

Is it helpful if I report the same problem 5 times?  Or ten?  Does that help you fix it faster?  Does that help move the item to the top of the list?

Dear Funny You Should Ask,

The short answer to your question is “no”.  The longer answer is also “no”.  It actually slows things down.  On the bright side, I can provide some reassurance that reporting your problem multiple times does not, at least, cause that problem to be moved down the list. :-)

Dear WaterGirl,

I see the word Transparency in the post title.  Are you planning to talk about how hard you guys worked to make the process as transparent as possible while the site was being developed?  We really did appreciate that, or at least most of us did!

Dear Thank You for Noticing That,

That’s a good thought, but the word Transparency in the title actually refers to the flyouts/wings/previous and next post arrows, which are now quite transparent and allow you to read the text even if it is covered by the flyouts.  The flyouts stop being transparent once you hover over them to see the title of the previous or next post.

If we had more time, I could share more of the requests that asked for a change to the flyouts.  But here are a few, for your reading pleasure: The new website looks great. My only quibble is that the arrows for the previous and next post intrude on the content of the current post. Did I say quibble?  I know it’s a small, cosmetic thing, but they are really annoying.  How do I get rid of those symbols on either side that indicate either next or previous post?  I’m on a iPad Air, and I’m ready to burn the new site down if they don’t go away. I know a lot of people love them but I vote them off of the island.

Dear WaterGirl,

I noticed the word Cash in the title!  I bet you guys are asking people to toss some coins in the PayPal coffers if we like the site or at least appreciate the effort that went into it.  Am I right?  Huh?  Huh?  Huh?

Dear No, Not That Cash, the Other Cache,

Let’s talk about some of the occasional issues that come up related to commenting, but first I’ll back up and talk about cache.

In very simple terms: cache is good.  It helps speed up the site.   A lot.  We want caching.  The trick is to get things set up just right – or as close to just right as possible – so that we use cache whenever possible but don’t use it when it creates problems.  If you occasionally post a comment and it doesn’t show up until you manually refresh, that’s related to cache.  It’s probably also related to which browser you use, because some browsers hold on to cache longer than others.  I’m looking at you, Chrome!

I guess you could compare this to the problem we initially had with embedded tweets.  We want a firewall.  We need a firewall.  But the initial settings were so strict that we couldn’t embed tweets, so they had to be adjusted.

The developers are still making adjustments to cache, as they fine tune the cache setup so we can be as speedy as possible without causing other issues.  It doesn’t mean that something is wrong or that the new site is flaky.  Please try to be patient with them as they try to get this as “just right” as possible.  They have been exceedingly patient with us!

THAT’S ALL THE LETTERS FOR TODAY.  I’LL DO THIS FOR A BIT UNTIL EVERYBODY IS UP TO SPEED.

Oh, and if any of you still don’t know where to find the Blogroll, you might want to read the first Dear WaterGirl thread:

https://www.balloon-juice.com/2019/11/18/dear-watergirl/

Update: There’s no need to report anything if some the images in John’s twitter feed look funky.  We are testing some images to see what works.  Obviously, the two so far have not!

Dear WaterGirl: Comments, Cash, and Transparency, Oh My!Post + Comments (44)

Dear WaterGirl

by | 73 Comments

This post is in: 

It may be true that you can’t always get what you want, but sometimes you do.

List of recent changes/fixes to the new site:

  1. Replies display @commenter every time
  2. Amazon and PayPal links have been added to the front page
  3. Russian trolls (and others in spam) no longer show up in Recent Comments
  4. John’s twitter feed in the sidebar is cleaned up and now scrolls
  5. Posting / updating a comment now strips the extra line breaks left at the end of some comments
  6. RSS feeds now include the name of the Balloon Juice author
  7. Snark items are now displaying in posts as they should

Frequent Questions from the Balloon Juice Mailbag (aka Site Feedback)

Dear WaterGirl,

I miss the blogroll. I’m a longtime reader, infrequent commenter. I start my day off here and use the blog roll to explore the other worthwhile liberal blogs.  I know, I know: Why can’t you lurkers bookmark your favorites? But I’m frequently TDY or deployed, and I can only remember two website URLs: balloon-juice.com and dkos, and the Great Orange Satan got rid of their blogroll years ago. I use B-J as a home page for getting to many other great sites.

Dear You’re Not the Only One Who Said They Miss the Blogroll,

Never fear, the blogroll is closer than you think.  Just take the bullet train (down arrow in the white bar up top) down to the Footer.  The blogroll is right there as the middle item in the footer.  We’ve got Readers and Friends of Balloon Juice; On the Lighter Side, with frequent shade from the Word of The Day, and a few other sites that will help you start your day with a balanced breakfast a bit of perspective; followed by Non-Political Blogs, News Sites and, of course, Political Blogs.

If you are a Jackal and have a blog of your own, we can add your blog to the list, and you are welcome to nominate other blogs for inclusion on the blogroll. If you are a lurker Jackal with a blog of your own, you might just have to consider de-lurking so we can include your blog, too.

Dear WaterGirl,

Why can’t the down arrow work like it used to?  In the old site, one if the navigation arrows took me to the comment box at the bottom, which is much more useful than going all the way to the bottom. Not that I don’t love John’s Twitter feed, but I don’t need to go straight to it very often. :-)

Dear That’s Okay, What You Want is Hidden in Plain Sight,

It’s true.  The down arrow is the express train to the Footer, and as we discovered in the reply just above, there is now a reason to go to the footer.  And not just for our great tag line – Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

What you want is the COMMENT button, hidden in plain sight, on the other side of the white bar at the top.  If you touch, press, or click COMMENT – depending on your device – it takes you right down to your favorite place, the comment box.

Dear WaterGirl,

Thanks, WaterGirl for all your hard work on the site. I’m mostly a lurker so now you can say that the lurkers support you in email!.

Dear What a Nice Thing to Say,

Thank you for your kind words, and for making me laugh!

THAT’S ALL THE LETTERS FOR TODAY.  I’LL DO THIS FOR A BIT UNTIL EVERYBODY IS UP TO SPEED.

Dear WaterGirlPost + Comments (73)

We’re Having a Baby

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This post is in: 

Tomorrow morning, at 6 am, the site will be unavailable. Right about now, long time commenters and readers are thinking “Sounds about right, it’s a date that ends in ‘y'” or more likely “FYWP!!!”

But wait! There is more! This is a PLANNED outage, and as you know, we don’t plan ANYFUCKINGTHING around here, so there must be a good reason for it. And there is! Tomorrow at 6 am, we will begin to migrate the website over to the new site, and at some point tomorrow (hopefully early afternoon, but I am not promising anything), the new website will be up and running and you can go about your normal daily business of ignoring your kids, pets, and work and arguing because SOMEONE IS WRONG ON THE INTERNET and sending me emails about how much you hate the website.

You’ve been warned. I’m excited and nervous. And remember, it’s bad form to tell anyone their baby is ugly.

We’re Having a BabyPost + Comments (131)