It seems that the previous Open Thread was getting too large. New comments were not appearing. Thanks to those who pointed this out to me. From now on, please continue your discussions here.
Tuesday, January 11, 2011
Friday, November 19, 2010
The former 'Recent Comments' system has been restored
I have restored the old 'Recent Comments' system to the sidebar since the new one was neither popular, nor did it work properly or efficiently. Unfortunately, this means that comments made over the last few days (since the installation of Disqus) have disappeared since they were saved on the Disqus server, but not the Blogger one. Apologies to contributors such as Ravi and Broken Yogi who have lost several long posts from the last few days. If you kept copies of them, please resend.
I notice that in the transfer from the Blogger server (Google's) to Disqus and back the dates of the comments have been scrambled in the 'Recent Comments' box. There are now thousands there, all dated from a couple of days ago. The comments under the posts still seem to be there, though, and in the right order. I assume that from now on, all new comments will appear in the right order in the 'Recent Comments' sidebar.
Please let me know if anything else has gone awry in this transfer.
Finally, apologies to everyone who has been affected by this technical misadventure. I am keeping the moderation 'off' to facilitate speedier discussions, but I am going to add a flag so that readers can send me messages if they find any comments that they feel should be removed.
23rd November postscript
The comments of anonymous posters will no longer be displayed in the 'Recent Comments' sidebar. I hope this will encourage a few of you to think about getting a user name for this blog.
I notice that in the transfer from the Blogger server (Google's) to Disqus and back the dates of the comments have been scrambled in the 'Recent Comments' box. There are now thousands there, all dated from a couple of days ago. The comments under the posts still seem to be there, though, and in the right order. I assume that from now on, all new comments will appear in the right order in the 'Recent Comments' sidebar.
Please let me know if anything else has gone awry in this transfer.
Finally, apologies to everyone who has been affected by this technical misadventure. I am keeping the moderation 'off' to facilitate speedier discussions, but I am going to add a flag so that readers can send me messages if they find any comments that they feel should be removed.
23rd November postscript
The comments of anonymous posters will no longer be displayed in the 'Recent Comments' sidebar. I hope this will encourage a few of you to think about getting a user name for this blog.
Wednesday, November 17, 2010
Open Thread
Please continue all your 'Open Thread' discussions here. The thread I started in July has close to 600 comments and is loading very slowly with the new comments' system. I will renew the thread every time it it passes 200 comments to facilitate loading times.
Monday, November 15, 2010
New Commenting System
A couple of weeks ago I asked if anyone knew of a good programme that would enable visitors to the blog to reply to specific comments. One of our readers (Gautham) suggested 'Disqus'. I tried it out on a trial blog and it seems to work quite well.
I will be introducing this system later today. From now on you can either comment on a particular post or on a specific reply to it. This should bring some clarity to discussions between people who insist on remaining anonymous.
I am going to remove moderation for a trail period. However, comments that include links will still be subject to moderation since these may contain spam. If any offensive comments appear, readers can flag them. These will remain in place, but an email will be sent to me containing the contents of the offending comment. I will then decide whether to keep it or not. If you accidentally post a comment two or more times, you can flag it, and I will remove it.
You can also make your views known by hitting the 'like' or 'dislike' button. This will give me useful feedback from the many people who read the posts but never make any comments.
I am going to attempt to import all the comments from earlier posts into this new system.
Let me now how the new system works for you, and if you are experiencing any problems with it.
I will be introducing this system later today. From now on you can either comment on a particular post or on a specific reply to it. This should bring some clarity to discussions between people who insist on remaining anonymous.
I am going to remove moderation for a trail period. However, comments that include links will still be subject to moderation since these may contain spam. If any offensive comments appear, readers can flag them. These will remain in place, but an email will be sent to me containing the contents of the offending comment. I will then decide whether to keep it or not. If you accidentally post a comment two or more times, you can flag it, and I will remove it.
You can also make your views known by hitting the 'like' or 'dislike' button. This will give me useful feedback from the many people who read the posts but never make any comments.
I am going to attempt to import all the comments from earlier posts into this new system.
Let me now how the new system works for you, and if you are experiencing any problems with it.
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