Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

So very ready.

How any woman could possibly vote for this smug smarmy piece of misogynistic crap is beyond understanding.

Let me file that under fuck it.

Many life forms that would benefit from greater intelligence, sadly, do not have it.

Within six months Twitter will be fully self-driving.

There are consequences to being an arrogant, sullen prick.

Let’s not be the monsters we hate.

“In this country American means white. everybody else has to hyphenate.”

They are lying in pursuit of an agenda.

Dear elected officials: Trump is temporary, dishonor is forever.

fuckem (in honor of the late great efgoldman)

There is no compromise when it comes to body autonomy. You either have it or you do not.

“The difference between stupidity and genius is that genius has its limits.”

Every reporter and pundit should have to declare if they ever vacationed with a billionaire.

The party of Reagan has become the party of Putin.

One lie, alone, tears the fabric of reality.

Shallow, uninformed, and lacking identity

The arc of the moral universe does not bend itself. it is up to us to bend it.

Sitting here in limbo waiting for the dice to roll

Republicans firmly believe having an abortion is a very personal, very private decision between a woman and J.D. Vance.

These days, even the boring Republicans are nuts.

Giving in to doom is how authoritarians win.

The “burn-it-down” people are good with that until they become part of the kindling.

Marge, god is saying you’re stupid.

You are here: Home / Open Threads / Site Update: How to Contact a Front Pager + Ask Me Anything

Site Update: How to Contact a Front Pager + Ask Me Anything

by | 51 Comments

This post is in: 

Hello!

The previous Ask Me Anything posts about the new site have all been on the weekends, so if you are not a weekend Jackal, this is your chance to ask me anything about the new site.  So, ask away!

Quick note: I have mentioned several times that we are changing the method for contacting a front pager, but in case anyone has missed it, I wanted to call attention to it in the title.

You can reach any front pager by email simply by addressing email to their nym at balloon-juice.com.  If their nym has is made up of multiple words, you put a dash in place of the space.  If the front pager is Humpty Dumpty, you would send email to Humpty-Dumpty at balloon-juice.com; and yes, sending email to humpty-dumpty at balloon-juice.com also works.

This system has been in place for at least a couple of months now, but the Contact a Front Pager form is being taken down tonight, so please start using the new method now.

Back to questions… if you have any, ask away!

 

Reader Interactions

51Comments

  1. 1.

    dmsilev

    Are prospects for start-of-testing still looking reasonable for the next few weeks?

    (all necessary disclaimers about “Difficult to see. always in motion is the future” etc.)

  2. 2.

    JWR

    “.. and yes, sending email to humpty-dumpty at balloon-juice.com also works.”

    Phew! Was worried about that. ;-)

    Hey, Watergirl. Sorry I missed last weekend’s post, but all of my HTML concerns have been answered and, if not met, then exceeded. Thank You!

  4. 4.

    WaterGirl

    @JWR:

    …all of my HTML concerns have been answered and, if not met, then exceeded. Thank You!

    Very happy to hear that!

  5. 5.

    randy khan

    “.. and yes, sending email to humpty-dumpty at balloon-juice.com also works.”

    So that’s an alias for Cole?

  7. 7.

    Omnes Omnibus

    Can we have something that makes all emails to Cole be in all-caps automatically. I think it would save time.

  9. 9.

    WaterGirl

    @Omnes Omnibus:

    Can we have something that makes all emails to Cole be in all-caps automatically. I think it would save time.

    :: frantically pens note to the developers ::

  10. 10.

    WaterGirl

    @Mary G: You are very welcome!

    edit: the last AMA was very quiet, so perhaps everything has been “asked and answered”. If so, I have done my job!

  11. 11.

    LesGS

    This is probably not in your wheelhouse, WaterGirl, but maybe you know and can fill me in; sometimes a comment will be hailed with “That should be one of our rotating tag lines!” I am unaware of how one actually reaches status of tag line. I am also wondering if there is a way to ask that one be removed. I (humble mostly-lurker that I am) feel a little pang every time “A Dingo Ate My Baby” cycles through. 1) Lindy Chamberlain-Creighton didn’t actually say that, and 2) a dingo (or dingos) did actually eat her baby. Doesn’t seem a situation we should hold up in amusement…

  12. 12.

    Amir Khalid

    I haven’t been able to edit comments for a while, and apparently others haven’t been able to either. Makes me very frust* when I hit the edit button and the window pops up but stays empty. Will this be fixed soon?
    *As we say over here

  13. 13.

    Amir Khalid

    @Amir Khalid:

    1) Lindy Chamberlain-Creighton didn’t actually say that

    Meryl Streep did, in the movie. I agree that making light of a child’s horrible death is not a good thing.

  16. 16.

    WaterGirl

    @LesGS:

    …sometimes a comment will be hailed with “That should be one of our rotating tag lines!” I am unaware of how one actually reaches status of tag line.

    On the current site, it’s hit and miss, and we all say “this should be a rotating tag line!” but it seldom happens. On the new site we have a form where you can submit your nominations. John will be the final arbiter of which ones are actually added as rotating tags and which get put in the trash. :-)

    I am also wondering if there is a way to ask that one be removed. I (humble mostly-lurker that I am) feel a little pang every time “A Dingo Ate My Baby” cycles through. 1) Lindy Chamberlain-Creighton didn’t actually say that, and 2) a dingo (or dingos) did actually eat her baby. Doesn’t seem a situation we should hold up in amusement…

    John and I have gone through the rotating tags that are on the current site, and we have removed some of them. I’m sorry to say, though, that A Dingo Ate My Baby was on the list of rotating tags that were not removed. I will, however, share your thoughts about the rotating tag and we will see whether the blog master changes his mind on that one.

  17. 17.

    WaterGirl

    @Amir Khalid:

    I haven’t been able to edit comments for a while, and apparently others haven’t been able to either. Makes me very frust* when I hit the edit button and the window pops up but stays empty. Will this be fixed soon?

    Very annoying, I am sure! But we are not fixing anything on the current site. We are simply replacing the old site altogether. So nothing will be fixed for you until the new site goes live.

  18. 18.

    LesGS

    @Amir Khalid: Ah. I haven’t seen the movie. While I’ve been around to witness the genesis of many of the tag lines, I didn’t see what prompted that one or why is was thought to be witty.

  22. 22.

    WaterGirl

    @Mary G: You posted a question in a recent AMA question and then didn’t appear to still be around when I answered. Did you see that you will, indeed, be able to enter your own HTML in the editor and you will be able to post the embed code for a tweet and get a pared down version of the tweet, as you do now on the current site. (It’s only front pagers who can actually embed with photos and video, etc.)

  23. 23.

    LesGS

    @Steeplejack: I appreciate the link, not having seen much of Seinfeld! But I still don’t know why it’s a tag line here, and why it was thought to be funny. And if John decides he wants to hang on to it, I’ll deal. :) It’s just always a nasty little jolt.

  25. 25.

    Mary G

    @WaterGirl: Yes, I missed it at the time and tried to find it in the site maintenance category, with no luck, then your name and found it. Thanks for responding. I learned HTML in 2003 or so, but hardly ever use it, but embedding tweets is great for my lousy hands, so I’m happy. Also glad for the edit button. It’s all good for me.

  30. 30.

    Steeplejack

    @LesGS:

    I don’t want to get into a deep exploration of how something becomes a meme. As Mary G noted above, Meryl Streep gave a very odd line reading in the film, and it was widely mocked, reaching meme status with Seinfeld. It has been part of the Zeitgeist for a long time.

    Not everything that becomes a floating tag line at Balloon Juice is “funny,” or funny for the simple, surface reason. Like, say, “Han shot first.” Sorry you find this one triggering. Apparently, according to WaterGirl, it will be removed, so you won’t have to suffer too much longer.

  31. 31.

    Mary G

    @Steeplejack: It’s really old, so we can let it go. I never ever saw the movie, but for a couple of years I listened to drunk people holler it at every party, and it wasn’t funny then either.

  34. 34.

    geg6

    My question is has anyone talked to John Cole lately? I don’t tweet so just wondering if his pets are okay. And thanks for all the hard work you all have done to set up the new site. I’m a tech idiot so no questions here about that.

  36. 36.

    Another Scott

    I’m sure this has come up before, but I don’t remember the result.

    The Lexicon? If we can nominate Rotating Tags, is there a similar mechanism to nominate Lexicon entries? It’s invaluable for things like C.R.E.A.M and 27% but hasn’t been updated in ages, it seems to me.

    E.g. Wilmer is not in it. FTFNYT is not in it (though maybe that’s too obvious).

    It would be great if there was a form. E.g.

    Who are you (nym)? ____________
    What term are you nominating? ____________
    Why should it be included? ______________
    Who said it (nym or name)? _________________
    URL for the first/best use (on B-J or elsewhere)? ______________

    That way the Powers That Be And Keepers of the Lexicon could quickly decide on including it or not and not have to do much work.

    Thanks.

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  38. 38.

    Aleta

    Whenever I pie myself I get hit with a banana cream pie. Can this be removed or can we at least rotate the kind of pie? Thanks.

  39. 39.

    Anne Laurie

    @Another Scott: The Lexicon *does* need a whole bunch of updating (says the person who wrote a good chunk of it), but IMO that should be left until *after* the new website goes live.

    Once we’ve worked out the front-page, top-categories issues, rest assured that I have every intention of plowing into the Lex for a top-to-bottom cleaning & revamp (with, Murphy willing, WaterGirl’s assistance). And when that happy day comes, I will be asking people for their suggestions, so — watch my posts!

  40. 40.

    Richard Utt

    I sent this message to [email protected] . It bounced
    Using Firefox 69.0.3 (64-bit), the site starts to load, with the shaded box indicating an embedded tweet: then, instead of the tweet loading, the box simply disappears!

    Instead of this (from Chrome browser) :

    (image from original email didn’t copy)

    I see this (from Firefox browser):

    (image from original email didn’t copy)

    Very frustrating!

  41. 41.

    Steeplejack

    @Richard Utt:

    What are you trying to do? If you’re trying to communicate some information, send your email to WaterGirl [at] balloon-juice [dot] com. She is the one in charge of the site rebuild.

    I don’t think the sitefixer address has been used for a long time.

  42. 42.

    2liberal

    not that i need to send an email: BUT ! what is the email address for [Individual 1] mistermix ? is the [individual 1] silent in the email address (as in missing) ? and what happens when DougJ messes with his screen nym?

  44. 44.

    joel hanes

    @WaterGirl:

    you will, indeed, be able to enter your own HTML in the editor

    My fervent thanks, and blessings upon you and the developers.

  47. 47.

    WaterGirl

    @Aleta: We are using entirely different quotes for the new pie filter, which is technically a dessert filter because everything is dessert-related, rather than specifically pie-related.

  49. 49.

    WaterGirl

    @Richard Utt: We are not fixing anything on the old site, so all I can do is say I get how frustrating it can be. What we are doing is building the new site from scratch, so there’s that to look forward to.

  50. 50.

    WaterGirl

    @2liberal: Good questions. I can add aliases, which is I suppose what I will need to do. If it comes to that, we may have to beat mistermix with a wet noodle. I talked to DougJ about that when we created the email accounts. For now they are mistermix and dougj.

    I have made a note, and those two are on my list. thanks.

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