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Motto for the House: Flip 5 and lose none.

The truth is, these are not very bright guys, and things got out of hand.

Let’s delete this post and never speak of this again.

Historically it was a little unusual for the president to be an incoherent babbling moron.

Schmidt just says fuck it, opens a tea shop.

Jesus, Mary, & Joseph how is that election even close?

I’ve spoken to my cat about this, but it doesn’t seem to do any good.

Wow, you are pre-disappointed. How surprising.

A Senator Walker would be an insult to the state and the nation.

Let there be snark.

I did not have this on my fuck 2022 bingo card.

Too often we confuse noise with substance. too often we confuse setbacks with defeat.

An almost top 10,000 blog!

Being the leader of the world means to be the leader of peace.

Incompetence, fear, or corruption? why not all three?

Usually wrong but never in doubt

My years-long effort to drive family and friends away has really paid off this year.

And now I have baud making fun of me. this day can’t get worse.

After roe, women are no longer free.

Conservatism: there are some people the law protects but does not bind and others who the law binds but does not protect.

We still have time to mess this up!

I really should read my own blog.

Make the republican party small enough to drown in a bathtub.

You are here: Home / z-Retired Categories / Site Maintenance / Comments Problem

Comments Problem

by | 88 Comments

This post is in: 

For reasons that will, I am sure, remain a mystery, some of your comments are going directly to the trash. Please, over the next few days, check to make sure your comments actually post. If they do not, email me, and I will dig them out. One of the things that changed with the site rebuild is that I occasionally get an email requesting a comment for deletion- meaning one of you decided to delete your comment. I don’t have to do anything, it just deletes it, but it notifies me. I suspect that when you all do that, it may auto assign all your future comments to the junk file. I really do not know, though.

A vibrant comment section is important to me, and I don’t want you all just giving up.

Reader Interactions

88Comments

  3. 3.

    jibeaux

    For good measure, we should probably repeat everything we had to say vis a vis Ms. Black, who does and does not suck, music in general, auto-tuning, vanity labels, and the kids these days.

  5. 5.

    Comrade Mary

    John, a question for your webmistress. Could the comments loss somehow be related to the new URL used to reload the page after someone posts a comments? Most of us civilians didn’t notice anything until we saw that we got a “rollback” effect if we reloaded the page after commenting. This started a few days ago, about the time you started losing comments.

  6. 6.

    schrodinger's cat

    I think I have it figured out. John put Tunch on a diet. Tunch is hungry and he is eating the comments. Feed him now, or else he will start eating the the commenters instead of the comments.

    Your comments, I eated them.
    ..Tunch

  9. 9.

    Tonal Crow

    The comment loss is probably another “spam filter” problem instead of being related to delete requests.

    The other day I was unable, despite repeated attempts (including edits aimed at working around the problem), to post a comment about drug searches and canines. I was able to post a complaint about the problem, though. And I had not asked to delete any messages. In fact, I’m pretty sure I’ve never asked to do that.

    GYWP!!!!

  10. 10.

    joeyess

    This damn problem happened to me about, well, about the same time you did the site rebuild. I think at the time I emailed DougJ. He got me straightened out, though.

  12. 12.

    Ash Can

    For reasons that will, I am sure, remain a mystery, some of your comments are going directly to the trash.

    The jokes, they write themselves.

  13. 13.

    The Political Nihilist Formerly Known As Kryptik

    Part of it seems to be the site accepting the posts, but then tanking them away off the rolls, not even in moderation. I tried to post a comment that I thought disappeared in moderation and I just didn’t see it, but then I got an error saying ‘Whoops, it seems you’ve already sent that comment!’

  15. 15.

    MikeJ

    I’m looking forward to another rant from a WP employee who doesn’t know what the fuck open source means telling us we’re all idiots. But that’s the way to make people think more of your shitty product.[1]

    [1] Not that I actually think WP is inherently shitty. It’s just very easy to fuck it up and very difficult to test properly.

  16. 16.

    jibeaux

    I really would like to know if anyone pronounces “Friday” like that, though, or if I’m irreparably Southern and the rest of the country thinks it’s normal to have what sounds like about three syllables of nasal “i” in the middle of a word.

  20. 20.

    Shinobi

    Are you Suuuuure you want a vibrant comment section? Wouldn’t it be so much more peaceful if we were all just part of the hive mind?

    -RIST SN04

  22. 22.

    schrodinger's cat

    @John Cole: I have the same problem. When you post a comment it doesn’t reload to the last comment as it used to. It seems to happen for Windows7 but not Windows XP.

  23. 23.

    Mike (Hammer) Kay

    A vibrant comment section is important to me, and I don’t want you all just giving up.

    Slow day on BJ — might as well post a couple of manning threads to get the blog’s heart pumping.

  25. 25.

    gogol's wife

    @jibeaux:

    Is the “Friday” thread being continued here? If so, I’d like to repeat that Minnie Riperton was a goddess.

  27. 27.

    FormerSwingVoter

    By the way – an awesome article about how our Founding Fathers were, in fact, raging socialists:

    http://www.dissentmagazine.org/article/?article=1232

    In the revolutionary fervor of 1776, John Adams had agreed. “The only possible Way then of preserving the Ballance of Power on the side of equal Liberty and public Virtue,” he wrote in a letter to James Sullivan, “is to make the Acquisition of Land easy to every Member of Society: to make a Division of the Land into Small Quantities, So that the Multitude may be possessed of landed Estates.” Such thinking obviously shaped Jefferson’s Draft Constitution for Virginia (1776), which stipulated that every man without property (or without adequate property) is entitled to fifty acres of public land upon reaching adulthood and, even more striking, that no one else should be permitted to appropriate public land. “Legislators cannot invent too many devices for subdividing property,” he later wrote in a letter to James Madison.

  29. 29.

    licensed to kill time

    @John Cole:

    What happens is once you have made a comment, or have clicked on a link to a previous comment, when you refresh it reloads the page and scrolls back up to that last comment.

    This is weird because often you make a comment, then keep reading down the page. But when you refresh it rolls you back up to your last comment or last link clicked on. The actual comment # is in the URL bar at the top of the browser and it scrolls you up really rapidly. It’s dizzying!

    I’ve often thought it would be helpful for you to use the site for an afternoon as a commenter (no privileges!) so you can experience the issues us lowly commenters complain about. Heh.

    eta: The workaround is to click the blue link on the last comment you’ve read before you refresh. Then it takes you there, at least.

  30. 30.

    jcricket

    isn’t giving up what we do before we end up commenting on Balloon Juice?

    Put another way, commenting on BJ is proof you’ve given up on making a meaningful contribution to life.

    Blogging for BJ is, on the other hand, proof that god loves you.

  31. 31.

    Studly Pantload

    @gnomedad:

    I would have gone with “spirited,” but that probably just shows the limitations of my thinking.

    OTOH, can I get an “ebullient”?

  33. 33.

    Corner Stone

    @schrodinger’s cat: Unfortunately, I’m going to have to reschedule our coffee planned for tomorrow. I’ve got people coming in from Hong Kong for client meetings.
    Do they NOT know this is Spring Break week?!

  36. 36.

    ThatLeftTurnInABQ

    I’ve seen this movie before. This is what you get for banning m_c: Balloon-Juice, the Wrath of Chan.

  37. 37.

    freelancer

    I give up. And yes the rollback thing makes me thing my brain is screwy. I had a comment disappear two nights ago, but I didn’t care enough to whinge about it.

  38. 38.

    trollhattan

    @John Cole

    Just since the site redesign, I occasionally have comments disappear without so much as a “You’re in moderation” message. Most–but not all–included links and my workaround would be to add a space into said link, and repost. The no-linky ones, I don’t have a clue.

    I’ve never deleted a comment (to everybody’s detriment) but have had to play the right-click-to-edit game, also beginning recently.

  39. 39.

    Ash Can

    @ThatLeftTurnInABQ: M_c’s voluminous crap was weighting the threads down and preventing the rollback, eh?

    Now that you mention it, that rollback thing isn’t too terrible…

  41. 41.

    gbear

    When you fix it this time, can you also fix the border problem that’s been happening since way before the last upgrade, and wasn’t fixed with that upgrade? Please?

    Thanks.

  44. 44.

    Steeplejack

    Cole:

    A vibrant comment section [. . .].

    Sorry, had a hard time keeping a straight face at that. I think the comment section here is “vibrant” in the way the streets–not to mention the river–of Ankh-Morpock are vibrant.

    On the River Ankh: “By the time it gets to the seaward side of the city, even an agnostic could walk across it.”

    Actually, I keed, I keed. This is my chosen home on the Interwebs, and I am astounded on a daily basis at how much I learn from and am entertained by the commenters here.

  45. 45.

    Warren Terra

    As long as people are looking into the site, is there any chance it can be fixed so that “balloon-juice.com” goes to the same version of the page as “www.balloon-juice.com”? Since the last site modifications, it reproducibly calls up a version of the page that’s an hour or so out of date.

  46. 46.

    Violet

    The rollback thing is annoying. So’s the comments just disappearing into the ether for no reason. No non-allowed words. Not too many links. Just…poof. Gone. Sometimes it seems it’s the link in the post, even if it doesn’t include “soshulism” or “caseenoh” or “rooolettte” or “shooz” (all spelled correctly). If I remove the link, the post will actually post.

  47. 47.

    Mike (Hammer) Kay

    Why! Why! Why!

    Why hasn’t Obama spoken out about the mistreatment of comments?!

  49. 49.

    freelancer

    @Violet:

    Now, I remember. It was on the thread where John had said he fell down the stairs, and I suggested we get him some kind of padded suit, and I linked to a jpeg of the Michelin Man mascot, and the link (I’m guessing) caused my comment to get eated.

  53. 53.

    Mike (Hammer) Kay

    @Tonal Crow: how dare you compare the most important issue in a century to a pie.

    You’re as insensitive as Gilbert Gottfried.

    God may have mercy on your soul, but I will not.

  55. 55.

    eemom

    A vibrant comment section is important to me

    it……is?
    why, John Cole……that’s the nicest thing you’ve ever said.
    [sniff]

  58. 58.

    srv (Channelling BIRDZILLA)

    You dummycrats care more about your PRECOIUS comments than other peoples FREEDOMS. Where is DARWINISM when you need him?

  59. 59.

    TooManyJens

    I find it weird that people are saying the “rollback” (where the #commentno gets appended to the URL after you post a comment) just started happening to them recently. Am I the only one who’s had that for ages?

  60. 60.

    Martin

    A vibrant comment section is important to me, and I don’t want you all just giving up.

    Honestly, the lost posts are less likely to drive me from the site than some of the more assholish trolls are. Technical glitches I can tolerate, tolerance of trolls by the host is harder.

  63. 63.

    HyperIon

    @Ash Can:

    I get the rollback on Firefox, and it’s a PITA.

    me, too.
    but i cannot edit my comments anymore.
    i was doing the ctrl-click thing to get a new tab but now nothing happens.

    i stopped being able to comment before the onset of the rollback (i think).

  65. 65.

    scav

    @TooManyJens: Best I can tell, I’ve had it for a good while — just got more obvious recently with a visible roll-up flutter rather than a jump. Chrome here.

  66. 66.

    Platonicspoof

    i NEVER HAVE PROBlems With THE siT.

    tHEN i USE new OS named xp.

    AND! beat versiON BSOWSER Ie 8.

    join the 20th CENTURY PEOPLE.

  67. 67.

    licensed to kill time

    @TooManyJens: The rollback thingy just started happening for me, possibly(?) after updating to Firefox 3.6.15. It was just this last week, anyway.

  68. 68.

    cathyx

    I’ve recently started having the roll back problem too, maybe for a week now. But clicking on the link at the last comment like someone above recommended fixes it.

  69. 69.

    HyperIon

    @TooManyJens wrote:

    I find it weird that people are saying the “rollback”

    What i think rollback means is a series of page downs after the comment is posted. So the comment is submitted, then instead of just showing the end of the thread where the new comment should appear, the browser flashes the pages as it navigates back to the end. if there are not many comments, then not many flashes. but some of the longer threads can be seizure inducing. not MY idea of vibrant.

  70. 70.

    HyperIon

    @licensed to kill time wrote:

    The rollback thingy just started happening for me, possibly(?) after updating to Firefox 3.6.15.

    Hmm. Yes, I did upgrade recently. Can you edit your comments?

    Edit: hey, i can now edit a comment just by clicking on edit. no more ctrl-click necessary. so…nevermind!

  71. 71.

    cathyx

    @HyperIon: No, what happens is when you refresh the page, it used to refresh to the last comment left before you refreshed. Now the page rolls down then up then down then back up to some arbitrary place in the middle of the comment section.

  72. 72.

    licensed to kill time

    @HyperIon: Yes, I can edit now without doing the ‘open in new tab’ dance. One step forward, two rolls back.

  73. 73.

    TooManyJens

    @cathyx: Oh, OK. That’s not the same as what I’m talking about. And it sounds very annoying.

    I’m using Firefox 3.6.15 on a Mac and I don’t have that.

    Edited to add: Also, too, I can edit without doing ctrl-click. Because I know you all care what my computer is doing.

  76. 76.

    Cris

    @cathyx: Now the page rolls down then up then down then back up to some arbitrary place in the middle of the comment section

    As somebody who really loves jQuery, this is the kind of thing that makes me really hate jQuery.

  79. 79.

    licensed to kill time

    @WaterGirl: So it seems like it’s a new thing for everybody, across various OS(‘s?) and browsers.

    I still think John or his webmistress ought to use the site as a commenter for a while and see for themselves what happens, no? My two cents.

  80. 80.

    Paula

    @Martin:

    Troll is in the eye of the beholder …

    Honestly, though, I think they 1) genuinely believe what they post, 2) genuinely believe that posting on endless flame wars is useful for whatever cause they currently find distressing and 3) think that insulting people is an effective way of arguing.

    So in the 3 instances, they believe in the activity and aren’t just trying to get a rise out of people.

  84. 84.

    FlipYrWhig

    @cathyx: Yeah, mine does that a lot. I feel like shouting out “Big money, no Whammies, no Whammies, stop!”

    I didn’t realize that’s what everyone was noticing as a new phenomenon.

  87. 87.

    mclaren

    For reasons that will, I am sure, remain a mystery, some of your comments are going directly to the trash.

    For many of the commenters on this blog, that’s a big plus.

  88. 88.

    Corner Stone

    @AhabTRuler:

    You suck, Cole!
    __
    Nope, works just fine, this time!

    I don’t think just once is a very good test. Post this a few more times just to be sure it’s still functioning properly.
    We need certainty.

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