Next stage in the re-design is to figure out what all you need to have fixed and upgraded and what not. The list I can think of so far is:
comment editing function
comment buttons for html functions
rss feed
iphone app.
Is there anything else that is fubared? Also, someone is pestering me while I write this, and clearly wants to say hello:
If you can think of anything else to add, throw it in here.
mcc
This is just my opinion but I think the “reply to this button” link on every post is tiny, easy to overlook and difficult to understand. Since it’s just one unlabeled image I did not even know it was there until someone else in the comments specifically pointed it out.
Also:
– Preview function would be nice though not essential
– It would be nice to have more transparency on what determines whether posts are going to get “held for moderation”
General Winfield Stuck
LOL. Bestest Lily shot yet. A big kiss.
I only care about edit function, but could live without it, though readers of my scribbles may not.
Other than that, a stable site would be nice.
Just Some Fuckhead
Your dog looks like a seal in the face.
Trinity
Hi Lily!
@JC – how about you get one of those little wireless cameras and post some Lily-cam video from one of your walks. Just sayin’ that she’s way more interesting and far cuter then the birthers. (Yes, I’ve set the bar low.)
I just want the site to work consistently.
plzthanxbye
MikeJ
Decent hosting where they know how to run a mysql box.
Josh Huaco
iphone app? I must have missed that. Do you just download the WordPress app from the iTunes store?
shelley matheis
Ohhhhhhhhh!
The way those ears are back, I can just imagine how that tail must be wagging!
“Hey, look at me. Look at me!”
Jason
I am a lurker who rarely comments and reads most of the postings in Google Reader but I wanted to say that is an adorable shot of Lily. Reading about your progress with Lily and seeing the photos has been wonderful.
A Mom Anon
Oh,that face. After the el shitolo day I’ve had,that face is a welcome sight. No wonder you love her John,she’s so adorable and sweet. Hi Lily doggie!
Notorious P.A.T.
cute dog ) you’re so lucky
John Cole
@shelley matheis: Her tail doesn’t wag- it curls!
@A Mom Anon: How is your husband doing?
Polish the Guillotines
For the love of the O’Herlihy boy, make sure the editing functions do what their su-fucking-posed to do.
Using the reply-to-a-comment link and following it up with crazy-assed HTML like block quotes or links would totally fry.
lotus
Lawdy, what a smoochable dawgie.
Yep, preview would also be great to have back, whether the automatic kind you had before or an on-request version.
robertdsc
It was a CSS file that redirected iPhone users to a special layout of the site designed for the Safari browser. Very handy and fast.
schrodinger's cat
New blanket for Tunchinator’s futon.
mlm
Please make the post/comment section a fixed width. It hard to read the site in a small window, when the ads take up most of the room and the column section gets shrunk down to hardly nothing.
dr. bloor
“You gonna eat that? You gonna eat that? I’ll eat that!”
Fern
Edit function is at the top of my list – more important than preview in my opinion.
And formatting buttons, because it appears that I am too stupid to use tags.
And non-bold block-quotes, because that is the sort of little thing that irritates me.
But mostly edit.
MikeJ
I would like the addition of a stupid checker. Kind of like a spell checker, but it reads your comment and warns you before you post something really, really stupid.
It’s something we could all use on occasion, and some could use on every post.
anonevent
fix the moderated words detection. There’s a difference between cia-lis and socia-lism. A simple regular expression can be used to test this.
gypsy howell
OT, but Chris Matthews just got Arlen Specter to say multiple times on teevee that McCain & Palin were the best choice last November. Matthews even made Arlen say that Palin being one heartbeat away from the Presidency was A-OK with him.
Hahahahahahaa — Sestak must be ginning up the ads already!
Snarlin’ Arlen was Squirmin’ Vermin this time around.
Fern
Oh, and that is without doubt the sweetest Lily-picture yet. Smoochable.
Fulcanelli
What a cute shot of Lily! It looks as though that rash she had on her back has cleared up, amirite?
As for the site, you might get some relief from the pet pix naggers if you had a spot off to one side (maybe the upper left hand corner) where you could put a little slide show script/applet that runs with a variety of pet pix maybe with some LOLcat or LOLdog captions. Or maybe…
Integrate Tunch & Lily pix into your masthead logo!
Other than that the other suggestions given so far work well for me…
AhabTRuler
Jesus Christ, can you get a spam filter that recognizes the difference between pinga drugs and a political philosophy that emphasizes societal ownership of productive entities?
Just Some Fuckhead
The site worked just fine before we got rid of the Pam ad.
AhabTRuler
And figure out WTF is up with ‘shoes’!
lotus
Oh yeah — a bq function that allows for paragraph spacing within the quoted text without having to repeat the code for each graf (that or moosh ’em together), please.
BombIranForChrist
For what it’s worth, I don’t think you really need an iPhone app. Folks can just subscribe to the RSS feed and then use a feed reader to read the feed. I have about a bazillion apps on my iPhone, and I am personally looking to consolidate, not add more to it.
As for the other stuff, this is probably an insane amount of work, but some bulletin boards use this technique to moderate boards, and I think it is neat:
1. Every Comment gets a rating.
2. Users rate the Comment.
3. Users can then set what level of Rating they want to see and what level they want to ignore.
I have also seen entire users get Rated so that people can automatically filter out Naughty Users (users with bad ratings) by setting the level of user rating they want to see. So, if I have no tolerance for idiocy, I might set it so that I never see a comment with a rating lower than 3 (the default). If I have a greater tolerance, I might set it to 2, and so on.
It’s neat, because it doesn’t ban Idiots, which oftentimes just encourages idiots more, it just gives Nice Readers the ability to manage how much Idiocy they want to see.
Along those lines, I think it would also be nice to have some kind of Account set up here where you can put up a picture of yourself and / or dog, put where you live, etc. I might even change my name to something less inflammatory. Maybe. One thing I like about this site is that it has a pretty good signal to noise ratio in the comments section, as opposed to other sites.
shelley matheis
Irony Abounds
Based on today’s earlier thread, a nice wide bike lane would be nice.
TexBetsy
Beautiful re-design!
I read all your posts but rarely comment.
Comrade Baron Elmo
John, I miss the feature you once had where you can open up a second window without closing the first… that little box that, once checked, allowed you to click on a link and have it appear as a separate window. I used that feature often, and was sorry to see it disappear.
Linkmeister
I have nothing to suggest. Pat the pup on the head; she obviously wants it.
Perry Como
I want a version of the site for my Commodore 64.
Keith G
Been happy with what was. One question, have you ever thought about replies that nest?
Great pic.
And, yes, A Mom Anon how are things?
Linkmeister
@Comrade Baron Elmo: I’ve got a dual-button mouse, so I right-click and select Open in New Tab when selecting a link I want to open. It’s not as slick, but it works.
grep
Seconded on the iPhone / MobileSafari fix. It makes for much better reading on my liberal elitist iPhone. It only partially works now, loading the iPhone version about 10% of the time when viewing in MobileSafari.
As for the standard version – I don’t understand some comments towards the current layout. I like it. Especially the formatting of the comments – clear and easy to read.
Just *please* keep the commenting how it is (just comment only – not subject + comment). Subjects are pointless in a commenting section and just lead to everyone putting their comment in the subject field (see: talkleft). Big peeve of mine.
Anne Laurie
Preview function would be a whole bunch of WIN, but I agree Edit is more important if it’s a choice between the two.
Fixing the Block-quote function so that (a) it doesn’t fail between paragraphs and (b) the bq’ed text isn’t bolded would also help fulfill my girlish dreams.
If you really want to splurge with the extra donations, setting the parameters so that using the “Reply to” button doesn’t turn everything you type after it in the comments box invisible would be a nice touch, too.
P.S. And Lily’s looking better & happier every day! Way to go, Mr. Cole!
Punchy
TURN THIS FUCKER ORANGE!
(and get rid of the damn air balloon….way too old school)
MikeJ
L (shift)O “baloon-juice”,8,1
sys 32768
Violet
Oh, Lily is just too cute. Hi, Lily!
As for site suggestions, ditto the one about the “reply to comment” arrow button being hard to see/understand.
Ability to quote more than one paragraph with blockquote function without the second paragraph being outside the quote box. I’ve seen people do it, so I guess there’s a way to hand code it, but it doesn’t work with the buttons you used to have.
Preview function would be nice. It’s never worked exactly right when I’ve been replying to someone’s comment.
Weird word filtering that sends you into moderation is quirky but livable once you figure out the code.
Working edit function is handy.
K
Ever thought about a Balloon Juice forum? It could be off the main blog somewhere, might be a fun idea until it gets overrun by the fires of a thousand flame wars.
chopper
i’m sick of adding ‘Also.’ to the end of posts. can’t the site do it automatically?
Laura W
PLEASE add an FAQ link where you address the most common and constantly asked questions so we can simply link to it whenever the need arises so as not to suck up all the energy in most threads with 543 people all saying the same thing in helpful response:
When and why did you leave the Republican party?
Why is my comment in moderation?
How much does that fucking cat weigh?
Is Tunch a Turkish Van?
What breed is Lily?
Why is Lily not spelled “Lilly”?
What are “Burkean Bells” and why is DougJ obsessed with them?
What’s the deal with BOB (and how can I get to know him better?)
That’s just off the top of my head. I can come up with more, if you need me to.
Also. Improve the search function. I was looking for something that should’ve been super easy to find a bit ago and nada. Nothing more irritating to an archivist than crappy archival access.
Thanks for asking.
General Winfield Stuck
@MikeJ:
I’d advise against that for the obvious reasons.
I wish for a good dictionary so I canz loook up big wirds.
chopper
@MikeJ:
pfft, it should be sys 49152.
linda
countdown just had video of ling and lee boarding the jet with big dog standing at the top of the steps to greet them.
lily looks awesome.
demimondian
@MikeJ:
404 site “baloon-juice.com” not found
AhabTRuler
@Laura W: OK, go ahead and write the FAQ, and John can post them!
EnderWiggin
The Iphone css would be great. It was always very inconsistent for me in the past, never could figure out why I would get it somethings and not others.
You might want to think about getting ads added to the iPhone CSS and also get ads placed on RSS feeders. When I read the posts on Google Reader, no ads at all.
Share This or similar to allow for easier Twittering, Digging etc.
SEO, so many people will find the site, see the awesomeness and donate, so you don’t have to shut the thing down i.e. 3) Profit!
A “best posts” box, you could populate with overall best or most significant posts, like when you finally admitted that you are a DFH, announced that you bought us a new puppy, when Michael took his leave of us, when DougJ and Anne became co-bloggers, and “Yes, We Fucking Did” the best post title evar. Also that post where you tried to pretend that your cat is big boned, cause that was even funny than watching you struggle to pretend that you are not a DFH.
Placement of the RSS, Donate, Category Search and Archives in more standard locations, so they don’t need to be sought out.
A filter to make sure Ann Coulter ads don’t show up every time Doug posts about the birfers.
D-Chance.
Formatting the comments so we don’t jump from reply #3 to #6 to #11 to #23 to #40 to follow a conversation.
Green color to honor the Iranians (j/k).
Sidebar link so we can follow individual bloggers (“bloggers” gets spell-checked?), in lieu of ignore lists or peon filters.
Keep the old-school banner, megaphone, and balloon.
JR
In return for my contribution, all I ask is that you finally correct the spelling of JonathAn Turley’s name on the blogroll.
I don’t even like his site that much, but the misspelling catches my eye every. goddamn. day.
MikeJ
Was 49152 start of video memory? 32768 was the basic buffer, but a handy place to stick asm code without swapping out the roms.
828 was the start of the cassette buffer and was handy if you only needed a few hundred bytes, or if you put a redirect in there.
If you’d like I can find my book on programming the 1541. All about writing code that executed on the floppy drive’s onboard 6502.
anonevent
Also, my splurge feature would be comment nesting instead of the comments being in one long flat page.
eric
hookers and blow.
edit feature. also.
no spell check. live dangerously, my friends.
eric
Josh Huaco
“Wine, music, politics and kitten skullfuckery. Since 2002.”
Anne Laurie
As an old, cranky person, I vote against nesting replies because not only do they ugly up the layout, but I think they encourage a toxic level of me-tooism. It’s fine to second someone’s good idea, or to compliment great snark, but every political blog I’ve seen with nested comments attracts a blackfly-like horde of “we are the chorus, and we agree” non-contributors. YMMV.
Same goes for “rate this comment” buttons… if reading certain posters is medically counterindicated for one’s blood pressure, there’s always the Pie Filter. Although, come to think, if there is a way to include an “Install Pie Filter” link button, it would be worth making micropayments to the genius who came up with it!
Josh Huaco
@Josh Huaco:
And an edit function:
“Wine, music, pets, politics…etc.etc.etc.”
Fern
@Anne Laurie:
I agree with Anne Laurie. ;)
Punchy
such the gallimaufry of lexicon indeed.
Really what you need for this site is the Urban Dictionary. Such ratfucking concern trolls all skull-fucking kittens in a sandbox, chatting about dirty sanchezes and rusty trombones.
demkat620
I was happy with what was. So, what ever you do will be fine. Sometimes I just have fun reading what all you smartasses have to say.
demkat620
I was happy with what was. So, what ever you do will be fine. Sometimes I just have fun reading what all you smartasses have to say.
pika
How about just changing the blog name to “Clown Shoes” because I am a selfish bitch and need to LMAO from the get-go instead of waiting for tags. They’re all that’re on the immediate horizon anyways.
Srsly, newest Lily picture = swoon.
General Winfield Stuck
That be a cap gaffe.
lotus
Another Amen to Anne Laurie. Let’s not clique-ify the place. (Comment nesting drives me especially crazy. Tried it for about four days on my old blog once, and everybody hated it.)
chopper
@MikeJ:
49152 was C000, the beginning of free RAM. i think screen RAM began at 0400.
EnderWiggin
@BombIranForChrist:
I like the idea of allow people to register to comment and have real profile information and avatars.
I don’t think the site needs comment moderation however. Like you said, the signal to noise ratio here is good. There are only three sites where I read the comments on the 50 blogs I subscribe to. This is the best overall comment community I know of, with ObWi coming in second.
Laura W
@AhabTRuler: I’m happy to submit an estimate for my services. I don’t work for free, you know. Have Momo call Annie.
BTW, I’d like you to know that I hung the framed 8×10 “Nemesis” over my toilet. I know, I know…don’t balk just yet. I had it in my bedroom, but I sense Renato’s three photos are gonna go better on that wall. I moved your “Nemesis” around a few times, and when I put it over my toilet, it was PERFECTION. The space, the coloring, the black frame against the “perfume chest” thingey already on that wall. I’ll take a photo of it for you soon.
If I were a man, and if I peed standing up, facing the wall, “Nemesis” would totally be staring me down while I peed. It’s way cool.
Fern
I hope you don’t go for nesting replies – have to repeatedly go through the thread to catch new comments.
And now that I’m used to it, I sort of like the many-conversations-going-on-at-once effect, even if it does get a little surreal at times.
I hope that whatever you do in re-design, you keep it simple. I sort of like it the way it is – except for the not-working part.
Sentient Puddle
@Josh Huaco: And beer?
MikeJ
For the most part, I don’t register for web sites.
Just Some Fuckhead
@Laura W:
Real men sit down so they don’t fall over and shoot up the wall.
Anne Laurie
Further FAQs:
What means all this talk of “pie”?
Is BoB a real pervert/moron/bigot, or does he just play one on BJ?
How come Co-Blogger X sucks so much? (A: As an example of how hard it is to do this stuff well on a regular basis, s/he’s worth every penny John doesn’t pay… )
TexBetsy
one suggestion — you may want to review your blogroll. you have people on there who’ve been inactive for months
demkat620
@Anne Laurie: Further further FAQs
When do I get my Soros bucks?
What is a Furminator?
What is a ramp?
Betsy
@demkat620:
Further further further FAQ:
What is a neti pot, and why do I need one?
gex
Tunch/Lily web cam. So what if you can no longer traipse around nude in your own home.
General Winfield Stuck
@Anne Laurie:
Oh yea, I hate that nesting shit if it means what I think it means. The comments get out of time sequence and you end up slinging poo at one or two people all night. I like the tab as is that refers to who you’re answering, but always always in time sequence.
geg6
Ooooo, Lily! That is the cutest pic evah! She needs a scritch between those ears. As for the site, ditto the edit function. And I only ask because it drives me nuts and I’m a tech idiot, so maybe I’m just doing it wrong but…I cannot use the reply button when I’m on the Blackberry. Probably can’t be fixed, but since I’m here most often on the Berry (at least when I have the leisure to post, that is) it is very hard to hold a conversation without a reply button.
Josh Huaco
FAQ:
Who Is John
GaltCole?Why is this blog named WordPress Error?
Why can’t anyone on this blog spell “Socailism?”
Cat Lady
I liked what you had before the FUBAR. If I had to pick two, I’d say preview and edit. Also, too.
OT, but per the previous post, the answer as to whether to ignore teh crazy or mock it comes from the comedian that was just on KO: the next birfer quest from ORLY is that she found the real Kenyan BC hidden behind a comet, and her followers should get new sneakers.
RedKitten
Yep — that.
And please, for the love of all that is holy, do NOT go to comment nesting — I’m begging you. I’ve seen it on other sites, and absolutely hate having to bounce up and down the screen to follow the different conversations. The way the comments are set up is fine, so please don’t fuck with it.
And please be sure to keep the “Recent Comments” sidebar, as I find I use that a lot to keep track of which threads are hopping.
Other than that, I’m happy.
Oh, and please give Lily a smooch for me right in between those little white eyebrows. Goddamn, that dog’s cute.
Polish the Guillotines
@BombIranForChrist:
Oh, please no. Not ratings. DKos is nothing but a junior-high food fight over ratings.
Balloon Juice has the best commentariat of any political blog I’ve read. Ratings wars would totally alter the dynamic, and not in a good way.
Nope. The best ratings system is zing-infused commentary. Please keep it so.
demkat620
Oh dear god these teabaggers are idiots.
Why do they think the public option is a bad thing? I don’t get it.
WereBear
I love Lily and Tunch and loathe nested comments.
A Ghost To Most
Not all of us mobile readers use iphones. I actually sometimes read Balloon-Juice off my Sony Walkman X-series mp3 player. A bare bones, non-iphone specific mobile feed would be really sweet.
tom c
This one may be beyond your control but if I didn’t see Ann Coulter’s face right in the middle of your page right when it loaded it would be freaking sweet.
Laura W
@Just Some Fuckhead: Just for you, Baybee…
http://www.videosift.com/video/larry-david-explains-why-he-sits-down-to-pee
(Just saw this on Sun? HBO is re-running all his early stuff from 2001-2002. Hilarious.)
gex
@John Cole: My American Eskimo has a curled up tail that didn’t wag when I first got him. Then the other day my roommate commented that it wags all the time now. So you never know. Stay tuned…
AhabTRuler
@Laura W: That is how I fell in love with Van Gogh’s the Old Mill, which he painted in 1888 (two years before his death) in Arles.
Left Coast Tom
@Laura W:
So instead of 543 people answering the question we get 543 links to the FAQ?
Just Some Fuckhead
Why do some people call you Juan?
Fern
@Polish the Guillotines:
Indeed – ratings would be a bad solution to a problem that does not exist on this blog.
random asshole
To agree with some other commenters, having threaded comments would make these threads a bit easier to read.
Then again, reading the comments in discussion-order instead of in chronological order might make us all realize that we sound like idiots. I guess that’s a problem that can be partially fixed by adding the above-mentioned “Stupid Checker.”
donovong
Hey John: Lily is looking great! Shogun, my German shepherd, would like to get her phone number?
Joshua Norton
I want what everyone else wants, plus:
1. Do my shopping.
2. Clean my apt.
3. Drive me to work.
Also.
Comrade Luke
1. A photos section, so we can have one place to go for the animal pics
2. Regarding the iphone app, the best one I’ve ever seen is ussmariner.com. Go there with Safari on the iPhone and see for yourself.
Comrade Darkness
Haven’t checked if this has been covered yet, but the preview specifically needs to match the actual posting formatting. If there is going to be a preview. Otherwise, no preview is actually better.
Laura W
@Left Coast Tom:
Oh fer Christ’s sake, I can’t think everything through to logical coherency, you know! (Or coherent logic.)
At least it would be just a one-link, pithy post, and not several sentences recounting the same old BJ urban legends.
I’ll re-think this in the morning. Thank you for deflating my hot air balloon. I was so excited about my little idea there for a moment.
Punchy
One further FAQ:
How not to clean a bathroom buck naked
Lesley
Lily is quite the delicate little thing isn’t she? She just gets happier every minute (the relaxed submissive ears say it all).
I believe I mentioned it before, though it’s not a bug per se. The smaller pics used to be clickable for the larger size but lately they haven’t been. When it comes to petz, thumbnail pix need to be clickable. AND NO, I’M NOT A FURRY.
Linkmeister
Mmkay. I know I said I had no suggestions, but I’ll add my voice to the other folks: I really really really despise nested comments. The continuous string is more interesting, and you have something here I’ve never seen elsewhere: the easy linkage to the commenter to whom one’s responding via the “Reply” arrow (yes, it might be labeled or put into the currently non-existent FAQ, but it only took me about three examinations to figure it out).
John T
Disable strike-thru, it’s cheesy when people try to make jokes with it because usually it doesn’t work. And then they write a follow-up post complaining about how it didn’t work.
Fix the weird automated small-caps thing that doesn’t work right half of the time. Is it just my browser, or is the height of the capital letters inconsistent when I type FUBAR A-OK U.S.A. X-HEIGHT-TEST X HEIGHT TEST? (Sorry I’m a type nerd and things like this bug me)
A Ghost To Most
and please don’t make us register. TBOGGs old site was a great community until he moved to FDL and required registering to comment. It just wasn’t the same anymore.
Elroy's Lunch
Please, no ratings and no nested comments. This site works well pretty much the way it is now. We know who’s who and can figure it out. And yes, some buttony things for the HTML tag challenged like me.
A give Lily a big kiss on her furry lips. That’s a serious I Love You look you’re receiving.
Lesley
Suggestion for the masthead: a rainbow colored hot air balloon with Tunch and Lily in it, Photoshopped of course.
T. Scheisskopf
Under the word “Love” in the dictionary is where that picture belongs.
Good luck with the site. I know nothing about WordPress and after our many month upgrade/migration to Joomla 1.5.x, I think I need to find one of those places where they medically put you in a coma for a couple of weeks. Bliss.
AhabTRuler
That, or you could try making HTML, y’know, work?
John T
Forgot to mention: FIX THE BLOCK QUOTE FORMATTING so that when commenters block-quote more than one paragraph it formats the entire quote, not just the first paragraph of the quote. KTHXBAI
Warren Terra
Please keep the site simple – in particular, keep it so that it works with semi-decent browsers like the one on my Samsung Instinct. I read a lot on my phone, and it’s very sad when a site (such as Obsidian Wings updates its commenting interface to have active elements that don’t work with a simple phone browser.
I emphasize the “simple phone browser” part because I’m given to understand that the iPhone or Blackberry may work better with some of these active elements.
Otherwise, the way it was (with Preview and Edit) was pretty good, and fixing the Blockquote function would be nice.
If you really wanted to ask for trouble you could let us post images in our comments – but people might abuse the privilege.
SiubhanDuinne
Like geg6, I do almost all my Juicing on the ‘Berry and would love to have the little curvy arrow reply thingy work from here. Also, if you can restore the formatting buttons, it would be nice if THEY worked on the BB.
Lily is just wonderful. What a great thing you did, John Cole.
AhabTRuler
Ohplease, ohplease, ohplease, I wanna abuse that privilege.
Warren Terra
Oh, and whatever code it is that responds to multiple exclamation points when people try to do the old “!1!!ONE” joke by trying, and failing, to insert smileys or something – can you get rid of that?
Obviously, not an item of worldshattering importance; just a pet peeve.
Linkmeister
@AhabTRuler: But then you’d see guitar Pr0n! Oh, the humanity!
AhabTRuler
@Linkmeister: see it? if I had the money I’d be buying it, so you post that pic all you want…’scuse me fer a sec (fap fap fap)…
Linkmeister
@AhabTRuler: Grins. Well, if you know someone who’s got a jones for a Rick and a good chunk of cash. . .
JGabriel
John, the big issues are the comment editing function and, seconding mcc, the preview function.
Also, fixing blockquotes so they don’t automatically bold would be nice.
.
SiubhanDuinne
@ SiubhanDuinne:
ETA: here’s another strong vote AGAINST nested comments and any kind of ratings system. Hate ’em both, and as someone mentioned, they address a problem that doesn’t exist on this site. I’m pretty much a newcomer, and I do a lot more lurking than posting, but I really hope your fixes don’t screw up the essence of this blog.
Laura W
@Anne Laurie:
You guys don’t get paid for the abuse you take and the effort you put into this site?
Perhaps those “several hundred” extra dollars that rolled in today could be divvied up between you, DougJ and TimF as a sort of “Thank You” bonus.
Hmmm?
Roza
Pet cam please
Roza
Pet cam please
asiangrrlMN
Awwwww, Lily looks so freakin’ adorable!
Add me to the no-nesting, no-rating group. I hate that shit. It feels very junior-high school to me. I would like my edit back, but other than that, I am freaking happy when this site is up and running. You’re the best, Cole. I mean it.
Fulcanelli
I have a feeling the host is sorry he asked for site suggestions and is out taking his cute lil’ doggie for a walk.
JGabriel
MikeJ:
I would NOT like this function. I’d probably never be able to post again if this function were implemented.
.
JGabriel
@asiangrrlMN:
Me three. Or whatever we’re up to.
.
Fulcanelli
@Linkmeister: Talk to me. Describe good.
asiangrrlMN
Oh, and PET CAM! I’m with gex. If that means you can’t prance around nekkid, Cole, so be it.
DanJoaquinOz
John, a couple months ago, when you first got Lily, I honestly thought you were making a huge mistake. The early photos and your description of her behaviour suggested a dog who’d been severely, perhaps permanently, traumatized by abuse and neglect. Her cringing shyness, her tail between her legs, her abject terror, were familiar warning signs of other dogs I’d seen rescued by well-meaning friends, most of whom, despite patience and valiant efforts, had zero success in restoring the dogs to anything resembling health and confidence. I felt sorry for Lily, and sorrier for you undertaking what I assumed would be a heartbreaking, if admirably intended, failure.
I can’t tell you how delighted I am to have been so wrong. The transformation in Lily is frankly astonishing. With a speed and completeness I would have thought impossible she has emerged as a delightful, confident, curious, playful and obviously very happy dog. She’s beautiful mate, and with your kindness, fearlessness and caring attention you’ve saved a gorgeous life and made a wonderful friend. That photo just says it all. Congratulations.
JGabriel
John T:
.
Comrade Darkness
!!!
John, what kind of optimization schedule is Mysql on? If you haven’t done any db maintenance, you may have reached critical mass on the number of records.
demimondian
@Polish the Guillotines: What PtG said. Ratings would kill the trolls — who really do play an important role in maintaining order and what passes for…errr…decorum around here. BoB would promptly be rated into oblivion, and as for demi…I’d be gone, gone, gone the next time I decided to pull a prank on you poor clowns.
asiangrrlMN
@JGabriel: I think we’re up to a bajillion. That’s unscientific, of course.
Roger Moore
I’d like to see something that’s more like a glossary than a FAQ. For all that people here talk about wingnuts descending into their own incomprehensible argot, we can be just as bad. A page that explains references like “granite countertops” or “two wetsuits and a dildo”- ideally with links- would be great for newbies. While you’re at it, you could include a scorecard so that newbies know who you’re talking about when you mention Secret Agent Flowbie or America’s Shittiest Web Site.
LesleyAP
What a beautiful dog. I love her face- you ca just see how loving and sweet she is.
AhabTRuler
@Roger Moore: Here, let me google that for you.
Anne Laurie
It works when you spell out ‘strike’ inside the carats. The solution to the not-working gripes might better involve fixing it so that ‘s’ (or a dedicated button) worked the same way.
Deborah
Just don’t hire whoever does The New Republic’s blog pages. 6 months after its demise they still promote the Stump, but not the new blogs that are several months old.
And I didn’t know how to reply to a comment until I read the first post in the thread; figured it was just some magic thing the long time people could do.
Linkmeister
@Fulcanelli: I’ve seen comparables at eBay from $2000 to $7500. Leave a comment over at my place and we can talk via email.
stibbert
imo the site is just fine as-is. i use firefox, & used to get the ‘missing .css’ format fairly frequently, but that actually made the comments easier to read, as they were more vertically compact.
‘s weird, but somehow my browser recovered, & i never lost the site-format during the most recent spate of format-probs, tho’ i did suffer from the ‘infected site notification’ idiocy.
i’d prefer a more-compact view of the comments. i rarely use xhtml tags , but mebbe a link to a help-page would be helpful.
what i really want, is more book-club!
OT, but i’m just so pleased by former-pres Clinton’s flying out of the PDRofK w/ the 2 journalists. Reminds me of 1984, when Jesse Jackson went to Syria & arranged the release of an imprisoned military pilot.
mvr
Could there be a way that users determined how to view comments? Chronological versus comments with replies to those comments indented immediately following, versus perhaps other options?
Maybe that would change the vibe, but sometimes it would help me if comments followed the comments they were replies to.
Thanks for the work and the effort to consider what we think.
Warren Terra
Could we get a list of tags someplace? I just noticed that one of the other posts might arguably deserve a particular tag, but I couldn’t remember the precise phrasing of the tag I wanted to suggest for it, and then I realized I had no idea where to look for it.
If I’m just being dense and it’s obvious, then nevermind.
pattonbt
My list (to the chorus):
– no nested,
– no rating,
– edit,
– preview, and
– FAQ
Im with Roger Moore above on a “terms” FAQ. I am not aware of all internet traditions and sturggle at times with some of the acronyms, pseudonyms and references.
But overall, love the site, love the commentariat and whatever magic it is you have in keeping it like it has been for the last 2 years I have been lurking – keep it up.
Fulcanelli
@Linkmeister: I appreciate the value of what you’ve got there, but that’s a little rich for my blood at this moment. Sho’ is nice though…
Hey, you should pitch it to this guy: PM Blues. Vintage guitar dealer here in RI, and he’s a Rickenbacker dealer, he’ll dig what you’ve got there.
shoutingattherain
Just what ya got right now is good. It’s a nice layout and design.
Add an edit feature. Gotta have that.
Just make everything work properly, all the time.
And some nice shrubbery. One that looks nice and is not too expensive.
Common Sense
What about an option next to the poster reply to button that nests the conversation that the poster is referencing? ie next to the “reply to” arrow by “11:22” on Comment 143 is another hyperlink. It would list the post Fulcanelli is replying to (138) as well as the one that Linkmeister is referencing in his post at 138. It could also list any comments that start with a response to that post. That way you can easily link to a history of the subtopic of conversation if you want it, but the thread itself is unsullied.
General Winfield Stuck
I just all kinds of love this photo. Hope it’s ok to download. I might just make it my screensaver. It almost looks like she’s sticking her mug out of the monitor for a big slurp/
SGEW
My couple o’ cents thrown into th’ pot, mostly echoing above suggestions:
Edit function (didn’t realize how much I liked it until it went away).
Preview function (so long as it accurately previews, natch).
No comment nesting or rating, o god no, lordy lordy.
Blockquote fix! Plz plz plz.
The !!!!!! thing – no biggie, but it bothers me too.
Let soc1al1sm and the standard word for typical footwear run free.
But above all:
Make site work most of the time. That’s all we really need.
jnfr
Just FYI, the RSS feed started working again once the site started working again. I guess it blew up with whatever blew up everything else.
I don’t think you need much in the way of site redesign; I think you need more regular database management.
And that is one sweet look of love from Lily in that picture there. Makes me happy all over just to see it.
Roger Moore
@AhabTRuler:
What this probably calls for is a wiki where people can record all internet traditions, complete with some kind of cross referencing. Searching google is well and good for some things, but just try googling “granite countertop inspection”. You’ll get lots of things about finding out if your kitchen counters are leaking radon into your house. If you looked it up on a hypothetical “wingopedia”, though, you’d find out all about the crazy antics of Michelle Malkin.
DaddyJ
Count me as an iPhone user who does *not* want an iPhone app; if by iPhone app you mean truncated digests where you have to make extra clicks to read the front-page posts. I’d rather zoom in on and scroll all the posts on the home page in couple of quick flicks. ‘S one of the reasons I love my iPhone!
Or at least, if you implement a more consistent mobile device app, give users the option to see the full site if they want.
Ash Can
Doggie! :)
And what SGEW @ 147 said. Also.
Linkmeister
@Fulcanelli: Got your comment at my place and have responded via mail. Thanks for the tip.
Tattoosydney
eeeeeeeee! I keep looking at the smiley doggie face and feeling happy…
Now I want to go home and play with my dog.
Nested comments – add me to the “no way” crowd – one of the things I like least about KOS (or at least I did when I last went there, which was a looooong time ago, before the earnestness got to me) is how the conversation gets horribly derailed because everyone keeps responding to the first three posts, and everything that happens below the first page just vanishes into the ether… I like having to follow through the thread to see what everyone has said.
Edit function, a few HTML buttons and the banishing of the WordPress error are all this site needs…
remember, more fancy = more things to go fut.
Jen R
Seconding/thirding/whatever the desire to fix the spam filter so that certain economic systems and footwear can be mentioned without obfuscation.
You know how, when you’re looking at a post, there are links to the previous post and next post at the top of the page? I’d love to have those at the bottom of the page too. That way, those of us reading on mobile devices without Home keys don’t have to scroll all the way up to the top of the page (I know how whiny that sounds, but it can take a while with long threads) to go to the next thread.
Thanks for asking!
Jen R
Forgot to mention, please keep the Recent Posts and Recent Comments blocks. Those are really helpful. Also.
inkadu
@Anne Laurie: Anne Laurie really nailed it. I am in complete agreement. If we had more posters like Anne Laurie, this would be a much better place. How can I rate Anne Laurie’s post?
My only (different) request is that you fix the columns on the left and right so they are not “part of the page” necessarily. What do I mean? I mean if I reduce the horizontal size of the window, the left and right columns are included in the “web space” so the center comment column gets very squished.
In other words, if the full page looks like:
| advertisements | comments| blogroll
when I shrink the horizontal size, it looks like this:
|adver| comm |blog|
|tisem| ents |roll |
|ents | | |
When I want to look like:
nts | comments | bl
I have no idea if I’m making sense, and even less idea what the code looks like, but most web pages I’ve been at work like that. If you shrink the page width, the comments column stays the same width, but the advertisement and blogroll (or whatever) columns just get clipped (not wrapped). Once the width gets smaller than the comments, THEN the comments start to wrap.
Wow. The thing is I KNOW there’s a way to say this in HTML code that is less than three words. I don’t know them. Also.
Anne Laurie
@DanJoaquinOz:
But it was clear, even from his first posting, that Lily was still “sound” enough to reach out to John. Horrible as it seems, sometimes the kindest thing you can do for a shelter animal that cringes away, or worst still looks right through you when you make friendly overtures, is just to keep on walking. Sometimes they’re too badly broken to survive outside an institution — but sometimes they’re just not a good match for *you*, and they’re better off waiting for their Right Person to come along. (And, yeah, I say this as someone who’s made the wrong choices on occasion, and probably will make more bad choices if I live long enough.)
inkadu
And I guess it might be nice if the editor would respect double and triple spacing instead of shrinking them. Now my post makes even less sense.
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 .
See, there should be 1 space behind the one, 2 spaces behind the two… but I bet it’s just going to come out as
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 .
Sorry. It’s late. I should go to bed.
inkadu
@Anne Laurie: Dog institutions are hell. Even the timid ones do better in a tranquil home environment with a calm, firm, and present owner; add in 2-3 hours of walking every day, and copious amounts of shit to roll in, and there isn’t a dog in the world that would be better off in an institution.
I’d also trade in my stupid column suggestions, a new editor, AND the automated also appender, for live feed Lily cam.
Tattoosydney
@Jen R:
“You know how, when you’re looking at a post, there are links to the previous post and next post at the top of the page? I’d love to have those at the bottom of the page too. That way, those of us reading on mobile devices without Home keys don’t have to scroll all the way up to the top of the page…”
This.
Indylib
I’m late to the party but put me down for wanting the formatting buttons and the editing function back. And no, no, and hell no on nesting comments and ratings. I love reading through the threads, it’s like sitting around with a bunch of people listening to a different conversations going on, only people actually get to finish a complete thought without being interrupted.
Keith
Better IE8 (stricter HTML, less ‘quirks’ mode stuff) compliance
PeakVT
Want: Edit function, HTML buttons, non-bold blockquotes.
Must Have: MOAR PET PICS PLZ.
Do Not Want: Anything else.
Keep it simple, keep it fun.
Gravenstone
@AhabTRuler:
I rarely get to brag that I actually know of of the guys who wrote the Let Me Google That For You utility, but I do. They all tend to find it amusing how its grown.
@Jen R:
Seconding this about the surrounding post hotlinks. It’s a small thing, but it would be nice to be able to jog to the next thread without having to scroll back to the top.
shortstop
Overwhelming urge to grab Lily gently by the ears and plant a large, loud kiss on the top of her head.
GReynoldsCT00
Add me to the list of those against nesting comments… I like reading things as they come in…also a pet ‘bulletin board’ would be fun, since you’re asking.
HeartlandLiberal
Careful review of your css style sheets controlling the layout, and how the three parts of your site float and position themselves on the page. Also how the ads and other items in the left and right sidebars are integrated into this. I think a lot of your problems may have been problems with the sidebar integration. I see this same thing at other blogs, right now most recently I have noted it at pandagon.net. Items there in the left sidebar bleed over into the middle primary items column, and cover up text.
The Saff
@asiangrrlMN: Right, I don’t like the idea of rating comments; I also like the comments to flow in chronological order. It’s always interesting to read the side conversations even when they get off topic.
And now I know how to reply to a specific comment. I had no idea until now.
That picture of Lily is totally delicious! What a dolly. She looks so happy. Excellent work, John Cole.
I also like the idea of incorporating Tunch and Lily into the masthead.
Comrade Darkness
@inkadu: hm, there is a tag for that, but not sure it’s allowed. Hang about…
1 2 3 4 5
Comrade Darkness
One more try. Sorry. I’d, um, edit, if I could…
1 2 3 4 5(first attempt was pre tag, this is code tag)
ChrisB
@DanJoaquinOz: Well said.
As for the site, fix the blockquote to encompass more than one paragraph and bring back the edit function.
And I have no problem with right wing ads on your site. Every penny they spend that might come your way the better.
Thanks.
joes527
@Anne Laurie: I was going to say the same thing for slightly different reasons.
EVERYONE has nested comments. It is kind of nice to come here and see everything laid out chronologically. You want nested comments? I have a Great Orange Site I can sell you. Don’t mess with what makes this site different. It works.
As for moderation, that is a toughie. BOB is annoying, and can derail threads, but I have never seen a moderation system that doesn’t have its own problems. I’d rather put up with Bob’s foolishness than have the site stratify into the cool kids and the not cool kids.
My preference is don’t change a thing (except that suggestion about finding a hosting site that knows how to run MySQL is valid)
CaseyL
What a wonderful pict- Hey, does Lily not have eyebrows? Never noticed that before, but it sure looks like she doesn’t.
Re the site: Add another vote against nesting, add an emphatic note against rating, and is it possible to have a profile thingie where we may, if we wish, upload thumbnail pix of ourselves (or amusing stand-ins for ourselves)?
I’ve loved this site for a very long time, for oh so many reasons, but the last few days have added another element: sheer suspense. As in, “Lordy, lordy, what’s WP doing to BJ today? What’ll the place look like, and what won’t we be able to do?” Been fun, I tells ya!
Steeplejack
My thoughts on site functionality after reading the comments above:
Fixing the edit function is the big thing. Balloon Juice has an articulate, prolific commentariat, and the lack of reliable formatting buttons is a killer. I am happy using tags, but I know a lot of people aren’t. So a good, minimal set of formatting tools is useful: italic, bold, blockquote, strike, href. Those are the only ones I can think of that I use on a regular basis.
On a related note, I’m not crazy about the (undocumented?) “shortcut” formatting things that occasionally trip me up, e.g., if I put asterisks around a cough when I’m doing the Internet tradition Kevin Nealon “[cough] bite me [cough]” type joke, the word between the asterisks comes out in bold instead. WTF?! And other readers have commented about similar things.
My big beef is about the dysfunctional blockquote tag. I hate that the block quote comes out in bold–although apparently not for everyone–and it would be nice if the blockquote kept all the paragraphs in the block and maintained their paragraph formatting (without the commenter having to insert individual [p] tags). Aside from my admittedly OCD typography/formatting issues about this, this is a content problem, because many writers end up with messages in which it’s hard to tell where the block quote ends and the writer’s comments begin.
Comment threads: I like the current “look” of the comment threads. It is important to me to be able to easily see who is making each comment and when they made it. This site does that the best of any of the blogs I frequent. On too many sites, I can’t tell if the writer made the comment above or below her name, unless I go back to the first comment and remind myself what the (current blog’s) format is. This is the thing I hate the most about Obsidian Wings, the blog I probably read most after Balloon Juice. I have to skip down to see who is making the current comment, then come back up to start reading the comment. Balloon Juice does it the best: nice, clean frame around each comment, the person’s name and the time stamp at the top. (And I like that each comment has its own hyperlink, which is very useful for saving something to refer back to later.) I like the big comment numbers for when I’m speed-scrolling up or down, and when someone says, “So and so at 47 is an idiot,” it’s easy to scroll back or page back and check the comment. I agree with grep at 37 that titles on individual comments are superfluous.
Speaking of comment numbers, I have noticed that sometimes they change, I assume when a comment comes out of moderation and is placed in chronological order in the thread. I’ll leave off reading a thread at comment 57, say, come back later and hit refresh, and suddenly that same comment is now 58 or 59. I don’t care about the specific comment number, but it would be nice to be able to go back and catch the “new” messages coming out of moderation that I missed. Don’t know how you would implement some flagging or read/unread thing without more interactive database action with each reader. A minor, minor nit, anyway.
Probably a lot of messages would never go into moderation if the filter was fixed. Footwear and political systems, etc.
I
don’t likehate nested “replies.” It takes the comments out of chronological order and really throws me off, for some reason. Ta-Nehisi Coates converted to the nested-replies model recently, and I been painfully surprised to see how much it reduces my enjoyment of his excellent blog. I actually have been going there less because of that.The current Balloon Juice method, where you can click to reply to a comment and then that person’s name shows up as a reference link at the start of your comment, works fine–especially if, as someone mentioned, it was made a little more obvious to newbies how to do it. (Maybe just change the arrow icon so it has “Reply” on it.)
With the linked comments, it’s very easy to click back through an exchange–all the way to the very top, if desired–and then use the backspace key to step down through the “nested” conversation in order, without breaking up the chronological flow of the comments in general, which is very important to me. That seems like the best of both worlds.
Also: I
hateloathe blogs that post comments in reverse chronological order, i.e., newest first, and don’t at least give you the option to do it chronologically. They are almost unreadable to me. Grr.The “real time” preview thing was kind of cute but not a big deal for me. I would be happy with a “Do you want to preview” button and maybe a popup window, just so I can check to make sure I didn’t leave any unclosed italics, bold, etc., and that is probably a lot easier to implement than the real-time thing. With the ability to go back and forth between preview and edit before posting, of course.
The five-minute edit thing is very valuable. We all suddenly see mistakes after our comments are set in stone, so it’s nice to have a short window to go back and change something. And it’s a nice backup to the preview function.
I don’t like the idea of rating commenters. On blogs where I have seen it used, it seems to have a negative effect, sort of reminiscent of junior high cliques. As someone else said, Balloon Juice has a very high signal-to-noise ratio, and if you read it for even a few days you quickly get a feel for the personalities. And the herd is quick to point out, and call out, the (mercifully few) trolls that happen by. Our resident garden gnome is a whole other issue, but the pie filter seems to be a good solution for those who can’t stand the stupid.
Reading the comments above, I was surprised how many people (a) want a pet-cam and (b) want Tunch and Lily in the blog flag (not the masthead). Both strike me as over the top and would dilute the serious/political side of the Balloon Juice brand. IMHO, of course.
Really, there’s not a lot to be changed. Just some fixes and tweaks here and there. You run an excellent blog, Cole, and I thank you for it.
SadieSue
My biggest issue is the same one a few people mentioned – when I embiggen the type on those days my eyes are really tired, the comments section gets hugely emshrunken while the other two columns stay roughly the same size. Basically, all the columns need to be a flexible size rather than a fixed size – a percentage of the page rather than a fixed width – so that when we increase the font size, the page doesn’t squash the comments field.
As for other things, edit would be lovely to have again as would preview & I also vote “no!” on nesting comments & ratings – I love the comment section here just as it is.
And Lily is absolutely adorable. Thanks for sharing her with us – & thanks especially for rescuing her!
LarryB
Hi John,
Threaded comments a la DKOS or MyDD would be great. Failing that, I’d settle for a “reply to” button that actually works (i.e., 1: doesn’t break your comment’s html; and 2: has a mechanism to quote the replied-to post. Maybe the second could be a separate button to minimize the comment cruft.
shelley matheis
Had to come back here to take another look at that smiling dog puss.
Aaaaah.
That’s the ticket!
x
Scoop! Scoooooopppp!
Heather
Lily cam!
Janet Strange
I pretty much ignore the ads – but in general I don’t like ads. If there was a way to “subscribe” to the site that let me turn off the ads, I’d do it. I pay not to see them over at the GOS and on Pandora.
MIght be a way to bring in a little income and stop some of the annoying bitching about ads. By the serious ad bitchers that is. (I do realize that most of the bitching about ads is just part of the BJ charm.) But like I said, I’d pony up – maybe some others would too.
You have so many lurkers. I wonder how many of them would subscribe to turn off ads if they could?