Unless the timeframe changes for some reason, let’s have this be the last post before merging.

At this point, it’s all up to the site hosts.  The merging is entirely in their hands.

I will have a role again once it’s merged, verifying that (fingers crossed) everything looks good.

We do have our very own backup in our hot little hands.  For Home Away from Home and for new-old Balloon Juice.

We had purchased software but hadn’t worked out where we could restore a backup to for a test restore, so Earl and I worked to get this going last night when the timing of the merging was sprung on me at the last minute.  It’s not perfect – we couldn’t flip a switch and restore and be totally rolling in an hour, but we’ve got the WordPress databases and the media libraries, the plugins, the site code, etc.

Plus, it’s just the backup to the backups the site hosts do.  Still, we have our recent history preserved, in our own hands, and I feel better!

Thanks to Earl for being my partner in crime as we figured out the backup stuff.

Last Post Before Merging, She Said HopefullyPost + Comments (4)

Hey everybody,

If all goes as planned, merging of the 3 Balloon Juice iterations will be happening – sequentially – on Thursday 7/21.

When I wrote a little while ago to let the front-pagers know, there was a typo.  At least I hope that’s all it was!  I wrote:

“As such, I am making reparations for merging.”

That was supposed to be PREPARATIONS, and I dearly hope that there will be no need for reparations related to the merging of all the iterations of Balloon Juice we had after the fire.

We plan, god laughs.  That said, here’s the tentative plan.

First, I will define some terms.

20-year Balloon Juice – Jan 2002 – May 14, 2022

Jackal Action – Home Away from Home (from 5/20 – 5/29)

new-old Balloon Juice – 5/29 onward, just shy of 2 months

Tentative Plan  (insert “with any luck” in front of each item below!)

Our original Balloon Juice will be the mother ship.

First we will bring in our 16 days of Home Away from Home.  While that happens, we will all be happily commenting here.

If all goes well with the first mini-merge, sometime between 9 am and 10 am we will all lose access to new-old Balloon Juice, and we will not yet have access to any BJ iteration at all.  There will be no commenting anywhere Balloon Juice for what might be maybe an hour or two?  Or three or four.

When that commences, a message will appear on balloon-juice.com, instead of the website.  (Note to self, write calm, reassuring message.)

Then the merging of our last 2 months begins.  (imagine the cartoon with the ? on the blackboard “and then a miracle occurs”)

When the merging is done, John and I will have access and I will be (hopefully) verifying that all is well!

We then go live with the merged sites.

As I said, insert “with any luck” or “if all goes well” in front of each item on the list.

Open thread.

Fingers Crossed, Merging on Thursday MorningPost + Comments (90)

John and I got email a little while ago from the site hosts saying they are doing some maintenance and would be moving some sites today at noon.  So the site will be unavailable for some period of time.

They talked about “noon” so I imagine that is noon Eastern time, but times always vary for things like this, so on’t count on that!

They said they will put up a site maintenance notice during that time.

I wrote back for more information but have not heard back yet.

Just wanted to let you know so no one panics if/when you see a message about site maintenance on Balloon Juice.

*This has nothing to do with the merging of any of the sites.

Update: infrastructure moves by the site host are complete.

 

Site Maintenance – All ClearPost + Comments

Top items on my To-Do list to complete setup of the New Old Site

Mobile Menu –

I added a few things tonight to get things started, but I am not a big mobile user so I want to ask what kinds of things you would like to see there.

All BJ Posts Auto-Publish on Twitter –

I have installed the plugin but need to get it set up.

Set Up Site Display Names for Balloon Juice in Browers –

e.g. Balloon Juice | Post Title

Categories –

I made the 36 top level categories, but none of the rest are in place yet.  In the process of figuring out if they can be imported from a list or if I have to make them all manually.

Snark / Sarcasm –

Examples: Fuck the fucking NYT, Our Failed Media, etc.  In the process of trying to get this functionality back.  Also, same question about import vs. manual additions.

Adding Images back for Author pages –

I have some images to be added, need to get others.

Adding Images back for Topics pages –

I have some images to be added, need to get others.

Create Form to Nominate Rotating Tags –

The previous form was lost in the fire.

Create Form for Site Feedback & Problem Reporting –

The previous form was lost in the fire.

All BJ Posts Auto-Publish to Facebook –

We weren’t doing this before so I will need to research Plugins for that.

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FYI

Medium Cool will be back on Sunday.

On the Road will be back on Monday, but we only have 7 posts in the queue so far.  21 submissions were lost in the fire.

Voting Access for All Coalition Fundraising; I’d like to get back to this in a few days; we kind of left them hanging in the aftermath of the fire.

Backups are Being Done Nightly by our Site Hosts.

Our Site Hosts are no longer using 365 Data Centers for their cloud storage.

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Two questions

1 – Mobile peeps, WHAT WOULD YOU LIKE TO SEE IN THE MOBILE MENU?

2 – WHAT HAVE I FORGOTTEN?  I knew on Sunday that I needed to make the mobile menu this week, but it apparently  fell out of my ears when I slept – I was reminded today when someone mentioned it in the comments.  Wondering if I have forgotten anything else.

NOT asking for suggestions of new features or fixes (cough, back arrow, cough).

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Open thread.

Site Update: Mobile Menu & MorePost + Comments (44)