Important Technical Changes at TPMCafe and Bug Fixes Round 2
Today I'd like to discuss a couple changes that will both fix the last of the myTPM transition bugs, and add a whole new level of functionality to TPMCafe.
Today we are installing two new Movable Type plugins lovingly hand built for us that will make it much easier for content to flow back and forth from main blogs such as the TPMCafe home page and the main reader post page to individual reader and contributor blogs. The best result of the change is the reinstatement of a full master reader blog archive (which is being deployed right now). But, just as the plugin will pull posts from all reader blogs into a master blog, we'll also be using it to spin off individual blogs for Cafe contributors by pulling their posts from TPMCafe into their own personal blogs. So if you'd like to follow M.J. Rosenberg or Theda Skocpol, you'll now see their blogs populated with their latest posts.
More long term, I'm pretty excited about the possibilities of moving content around Cafe by pushing content up to the main blogs and back down to individual blogs, and I look forward to using this technology to further integrate reader-submitted content with contributor and edited content at TPMCafe.
We do have to go through and manually create all of these "contributor blogs," so you'll see more and more of them pop up soon. For now, only Reed Hundt's is fully functional
Moreover, I have been reading your comments and bug reports on threads on this and other blogs, and we are looking into the problems. At this point, if you're still having trouble with the YOUR BLOG link, try clearing your cache, deleting your cookies and restarting your browser. Thanks!
Late Update: Another new feature today-- I have added a "Report Abuse" button to every comment. If you click that, we'll get alerted that someone believes the comment violates our terms of use. It may take a while for the button to propagate throughout the blogs, so don't be alarmed if you don't see it on every post yet.
Today we are installing two new Movable Type plugins lovingly hand built for us that will make it much easier for content to flow back and forth from main blogs such as the TPMCafe home page and the main reader post page to individual reader and contributor blogs. The best result of the change is the reinstatement of a full master reader blog archive (which is being deployed right now). But, just as the plugin will pull posts from all reader blogs into a master blog, we'll also be using it to spin off individual blogs for Cafe contributors by pulling their posts from TPMCafe into their own personal blogs. So if you'd like to follow M.J. Rosenberg or Theda Skocpol, you'll now see their blogs populated with their latest posts.
More long term, I'm pretty excited about the possibilities of moving content around Cafe by pushing content up to the main blogs and back down to individual blogs, and I look forward to using this technology to further integrate reader-submitted content with contributor and edited content at TPMCafe.
We do have to go through and manually create all of these "contributor blogs," so you'll see more and more of them pop up soon. For now, only Reed Hundt's is fully functional
Moreover, I have been reading your comments and bug reports on threads on this and other blogs, and we are looking into the problems. At this point, if you're still having trouble with the YOUR BLOG link, try clearing your cache, deleting your cookies and restarting your browser. Thanks!
Late Update: Another new feature today-- I have added a "Report Abuse" button to every comment. If you click that, we'll get alerted that someone believes the comment violates our terms of use. It may take a while for the button to propagate throughout the blogs, so don't be alarmed if you don't see it on every post yet.
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Well, speaking of bugs, have you noticed that the "recommended reader posts" list on the TPM Election Central page is acting all screwy again?
November 19, 2008 4:26 PM | Reply | Permalink
Need specificity. What do you mean by "screwy"?
November 19, 2008 4:39 PM | Reply | Permalink
Go look at teh the "recommended reader posts" on the TPM Election Central page and look at the very low number of recommendations. Then click "See recommended reader posts" and look at the "recommended reader posts" on the Cafe Talk aggregator page. There are posts there (ahem, including one of mine, ahem) that have many more recs than some at the "recommended reader posts" on Election Central.
November 19, 2008 5:27 PM | Reply | Permalink
is your post categorized 'election central'?
November 19, 2008 5:36 PM | Reply | Permalink
Somehow, I categorized it as both election central and TPM Cafe, which I've never actually done before. So, possibly most of them came from Cafe--but it didn't show up there either.
But be that as it may, my post has aged out--or should have. Now, however, I'm now looking at TPM Election Central and, like yesterday, the majority of the "recommended reader posts" have one or two recommends, just like yesterday.
I'm not sure if the problem is that they have more recs than are showing or if posts with fewer recs are showing up on to the top of the pops.
It also seemed to me yesterday that once a post got onto the recommended reader list with one or two recs it stayed there with that number, even though historically the pattern has been that once a post climbed to the top, it got more and more recs.
My former sys admin intuition says to check first on whether the problem is that the rec counter disply isn't moving even though the counter is. But, hey, I don't know beans about what's going on behind the code, so I'm just SWAGging.
November 20, 2008 11:22 AM | Reply | Permalink
I notice we have a "report abuse" button now. That's a nice addition.
Here's something that has been addressed before: any way to set up the blogs so that only the first dozen or so lines appear in the first box, and then all subsequent content is contained in the "read more" box? For those of us who like to look at the "all reader posts" list, it would be nice if the whole thing wasn't taken over by the epic-length blogs that some post.
Thanks Al!
November 19, 2008 5:01 PM | Reply | Permalink
It seems that some people feel differently, but one way of accomplishing both sets of people, is to have an option under your user profile that allows you to specify how you want to view blogs on the all reader posts page.
November 19, 2008 5:10 PM | Reply | Permalink
Does it make any difference how many posts you'll see on the 'All Reader Posts' page? Is the quantity of posts shown determined by number of posts or length of content?
If I chose to do a truncated view, will it show me more posts that I can then choose to view in each's entirety (or not), or will it show me the same number of posts as someone who is viewing the full length versions?
November 19, 2008 5:50 PM | Reply | Permalink
I like this idea. It would be nice to be able to default to a preview option for all Reader's Posts and then click to Read More.
November 19, 2008 8:45 PM | Reply | Permalink
There used to be something like that actually. Plus ca change...
November 19, 2008 8:59 PM | Reply | Permalink
I quit Firefox (on my Mac), took the option to delete ALL private information, restarted the browser and logged in: no change. I still have parallel blog pages for megankent and MeganKent, and no opportunity to create a blog from either one. The mixed case one has recent recommends, the lower case one has older info.
For a control case, I just logged in from a PC running IE which I have never used to access TPM before. I have the same symptoms. Primary (but not only) example: once logged in, when I click "Blog Now" I am taken to MyTPMBlog, but there's no opportunity to actually create a blog. I have seen no improvements in this primary functionality through all these changes. I can't imagine that I'm the only one having these problems.
November 19, 2008 7:39 PM | Reply | Permalink
Megan - I will investigate these issues.
November 19, 2008 9:15 PM | Reply | Permalink
Thank you!
I have other issues detailed in emails sent to help@talkingpointsmemo, in response to your first post, and in response to the bug thread over the weekend. Not nagging, just wanting you to have as much data as possible.
November 19, 2008 10:56 PM | Reply | Permalink
Al, her comment tab returns nil, and her comment/recommends RSS Feed's last timestamp is: 2008-11-14T13:02:52Z.
November 20, 2008 7:54 AM | Reply | Permalink
Al, user: meganKent shows active, and the Comment/Recommend Feed isn't XML. On both: .../megankent/ and .../meganKent/; the listed user name is the same: megankent.
I don't know if this helps though.
November 20, 2008 11:40 AM | Reply | Permalink
Megan, humor me, and click on a "Follow Me" link on somebody's blog, then clear your browser cache and cookies. Restart your browser and log-in again to TPM Cafe. After that, click the "Blog Now!" link. You can always reverse the Follow by clicking the "Following" link on the user's page afterward.
November 20, 2008 7:48 AM | Reply | Permalink
Done. As I described somewhere else, when I click "Follow Me" I get a progress circle, then the button reverts to "Follow Me." It never toggles to "Following."
I actually use the "Clear private information on exit" option in Firefox normally, but I did it by hand this time, and then again on exit.
Done. No change in symptoms. Clicking "Blog Now" still brings me to an empty blog page. I'm still following no one, though I see that by the numbers, someone is now following me. However, when I click the number 1, to see who it is, I'm told that no one is following.
There's also the separate (but possibly related) issue of the case-sensitivity of the username. If you go to the blog page for megankent you get a different page, with different links (different URLs for comments and recommends, with older recommend data) than if you alter the URL so that MeganKent is in mixed case (where comments and recommends are java links instead of hard-coded URLs, and newer recommend data seems to be recorded).
It's all weird, and beyond my skill set to understand; I just keep cataloging the symptoms (and yes, there are others, but this comment is already really, really long).
November 20, 2008 10:30 AM | Reply | Permalink
thanks Megan, I don't work here, btw, but I've noticed that many user who have had problems also do not seem to be following anyone, and was wondering if thre was a causal relationship. I don't know if it's case related. I just found something that may help Al though, and I'll post it where he's more likely to see it.
November 20, 2008 11:34 AM | Reply | Permalink
yes, i'm aware of these edge cases with capitalizations/cases in usernames. Working on it. Thanks for bearing with.
November 20, 2008 11:37 AM | Reply | Permalink
My personal kvetch:
Any way you can corral the Book Club denizens into one central location for their foodfight/discussions - as opposed to all the members starting new threads to argue every point??
Doing the latter has the effect of turning the Cafe page into, essentially, their sole domain -- with resultant deleterious effects on very interesting topics such as this:
http://tpmcafe.talkingpointsmemo.com/2008/11/19/anti-choicers_switching_up_str_1/
Not to diminish the importance of the Book Club; merely wish to not crowd out our other resident authors & their disparate opines.
Thanks for the consideration. And thanks as well for all your efforts to make TPM a more perfect free-for-all. ;-)
November 19, 2008 7:59 PM | Reply | Permalink
So far, so good, Al. Nobody has what you guys have here.
November 19, 2008 8:57 PM | Reply | Permalink
You're so right, Tom!
November 19, 2008 9:00 PM | Reply | Permalink
Al, I'm living in fear of accidentally clicking "report abuse." (That's my problem, not yours.)
But seriously, if the "report abuse" needs to be for reporting something that does not conform to the TPM standards we agreed to, wouldn't it be helpful to place them somewhere prominent - so we can double-check the standards in case we are faced with something reportable.
Also... what should I do if I ever accidentally click that button? It's prominent. I really doubt I will ever do it. But... just send an email of apology? I know it's a small thing, but truly... since the button seems to leap out at the reader.... it's put the fear of God into me!
I actually wonder if the prominent presence of such a button might - all by itself - restore some order. Maybe I'm dreaming, though, since some individuals seem unfazed no matter what.
November 19, 2008 9:08 PM | Reply | Permalink
Don't worry. If you click it, a dialog box will ask you to confirm. A link to the Terms of Use is in the footer of every TPM page.
November 19, 2008 9:13 PM | Reply | Permalink
Bless you, Al. I was hoping for a dialog box! I will now reread the terms. Thanks!
November 19, 2008 10:07 PM | Reply | Permalink
Al, I still would prefer to use the Report Abuse email link. Are you planning to phase that out, or is it still an acceptable method for reporting abuse?
November 20, 2008 7:59 AM | Reply | Permalink
We still have the email link (it's in the page footer) - though we do get an email either way.
November 20, 2008 8:39 AM | Reply | Permalink
LOVE, LOVE, LOVE the comments disabled note on the main list, instead of having to click on the post first!
Also, something is whacko on the Election central page main list...your post shows 7 comments when there are actually 16 and the new posts have not updated since 4 or 5 o'clock. I have a post that was put up quite awhile ago and shows up on my blog page, but still isn't up on the list...
...AND, this is the 2nd comment I'm making to you...the 1st disappeared into the universe...we'll see if this one comes up.
November 19, 2008 9:31 PM | Reply | Permalink
Seconded.
November 19, 2008 10:53 PM | Reply | Permalink
The 1st comment referenced above has now shown up on my blog page, but not here...
November 19, 2008 10:11 PM | Reply | Permalink
Okay, the Election Central page finally updated...
November 19, 2008 10:21 PM | Reply | Permalink
One thing I've noticed is that my 'comments' on my blog update almost immediately, while my 'recommends' seem to lag about 24 hours. Not a big deal, but seems to be a bug nonetheless. I too am pleased with the comments disabled notification on the main list.
November 20, 2008 12:24 AM | Reply | Permalink
Al.
My comments and recs have vanished completely. Again. I feel like a nag having to complain about this recurring problem; which seems to be linked to the introduction of new features.
BTW. Much appreciation for the way you are handling your responsibilities.
November 20, 2008 2:37 PM | Reply | Permalink
Al.
Fixed.
Do you have to re-enable missing features "by hand" for all individuals reporting them?
If so, much thanks for your quick attention to my problem.
November 20, 2008 4:38 PM | Reply | Permalink
no, usually a simple cache and cookie dump should fix your issues. glad it is working now!
November 20, 2008 4:40 PM | Reply | Permalink
Al, I don't know if I'd really qualify this as a "bug", but it is amusing, and I thought I'd share it with you. At 8:30 PM PST, 2008.11.20, MyDashboard showed a recommend saying it was pending 4 hours from now.
screenshot
November 20, 2008 11:53 PM | Reply | Permalink
should have been "following" not "recommend", oops...
November 20, 2008 11:54 PM | Reply | Permalink
Yeah, I've seen a lot of those. Initially, I chalked it up to them being on the West Coast or something, but then I realized that'd only be 3 hours.
November 21, 2008 12:21 AM | Reply | Permalink
I thought you were back in the Old Dominion.
November 21, 2008 12:42 AM | Reply | Permalink
I am. I chalked it up to them being on the West Coast, not me. :)
November 21, 2008 1:28 AM | Reply | Permalink
i was counting backwards...
November 21, 2008 5:00 AM | Reply | Permalink
this is definitely a bug.. we're working on it. thanks!
November 21, 2008 9:08 AM | Reply | Permalink
Al, Heads Up; it was an experimental post of mine, using inline CSS styling, and then a straight rich-text copy-paste of it. If it violates the site's TOS, let me know, and I'll delete it; as I said, it's an experiment, and I usually disseminate this sort of post through emails.
If you're curious:
November 25, 2008 12:08 AM | Reply | Permalink