And we’re up again

DMZ · August 21, 2004 at 9:10 pm · Filed Under Site information 

You’ll note the page looks dramatically different. This is the second phase of the U.S.S. Mariner improvement program. We’ve moved from blogger. While we complained a little about how slow pages were loading there, etc., one of the other things that was going on was that it was frequently impossible for us to log in to make posts, we had weird problems with double-posting (resulting in the ever-popular “You guys can’t be that smart if you’re double-posting HA HA HA 0wn3d!!” email), etc. Now we’re on WordPress, so we control the tools, the site, storage… and, unfortunately for me, we’re on the hook for our own bandwith, and I’m thinking about shutting boeing.com access off because you engineers can’t stop reloading the page every hour (I’m kidding! Big shout out to the Lazy B!).

If you’re visiting the site this weekend, you’ll see the links built back up as I port those over, and the template will continue to be tweaked into shape.

Comments!

You’ll note I enabled comments but did not launch forums. I decided not to implement forums after I cruised around looking at what other M’s forums were offering and decided it wasn’t worth it. We don’t have the time or resources to moderate forums, and while I had a dream of building a really great Mariner discussion community as part of this project, I just can’t do it. Sorry.

And as long as I’m being open about the rationale behind things, I’m pessimistic comments are going to be up for long, either. At a certain size, it becomes impossible to leave those things open, because you’re too attractive for spammers, trollers, and the like. I haven’t disclosed site traffic sites (and won’t) but we’re past that point.

It is my hope that the exceptionally high quality of our reader base will be reflected in quality of comments and thus will allow them to survive.

We’ll see. There may also be a problem where comments (and the associated cost in having people frequently reload for updated discussions) cost me too much in bandwith.

I’ll keep everyone updated. Back to baseball.

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Comments

12 Responses to “And we’re up again”

  1. Andy on August 21st, 2004 9:31 pm

    I for one am glad you’re giving the comments a try. Yeah, they might lapse into jun. But that risk, to me, is more than offset by the chance they might suprise everyone and consist (mostly) of intelligent discussion. That would be worth a great deal.

  2. Andy on August 21st, 2004 9:32 pm

    Actually, they might lapse into “junk.”

    What “lapsing into jun” might be I cannot tell.

  3. zzyzx on August 21st, 2004 9:35 pm

    I 0WN Y0UZ!!1!!1!!!

    Err, I mean, yay comments!

  4. Collin on August 21st, 2004 10:08 pm

    What about links to the rest of the Mariner’s blogesphere? Are they going to go back up?

  5. Dave on August 21st, 2004 10:10 pm

    The blogosphere links will go back up. The site is going to get better, not worse. Derek had some time to launch it tonight, but this isn’t a finished product. Look forward to more improvements on the way.

  6. James on August 22nd, 2004 12:31 am

    The links to the blogosphere are there, they’re just underneath the rest of the site. I think it’s a problem where the content of the side bar is wider than the width alloted to the side bar. I haven’t delved into the code yet, but I’m pretty sure that’s right.

  7. Phil on August 22nd, 2004 12:56 am

    There are certain things out there that make you login and have a password to leave comments (see http://www.dailykos.com) … Let’s see how it goes.

  8. Mark on August 22nd, 2004 1:11 am

    Go back to the old font! Please!!!!

  9. bigcat on August 21st, 2004 11:19 pm

    Thanks for the coment section! I think it can work. I’ve been reading for a long time, mostly agreeing, and think this is a great idea!!

  10. Wendi on August 22nd, 2004 12:02 am

    Congratulations on joining the WordPress legions! I hope you leave the comments on. There are ways of dealing with the spammers. That doesn’t mean I don’t curse at them frequently, though. I have my WordPress set up so that certain words in posts trigger the comments to be moderated, and that has helped a lot.

  11. Dan on August 22nd, 2004 10:59 am

    Hey, just some recommendations, on the comments can you bump the section that describes acceptable HTML codes and the RSS feed link down below the comment text boxes? Also the trackback URI at the top could be moved down, so your posts flow a bit easier into the current comments and the box for a new one.

    Also, the new comment box is spilling over the right line for me just a bit.

  12. Bill on August 22nd, 2004 11:05 am

    Great job, guys – looks really good. `bout time on the comments thingy. 😉