The author of this piece, Sah Kilic, doesn't present Medium as something that would work for me, so I can skip that. He calls WordPress "bloody slow," because of the reliance on "an extension for everything":
The themes are bulky and clunky, and the extensions have a lot of unnecessary fat to be trimmed. And the average user, not being a developer, tries to fix these issues by, wait for it… installing more extensions to speed-up load times....I was overwhelmed with the complexity and messiness of the place and all the technical language. I was reading things out loud and whining "What does that mean?!" Ugh! I feel nauseated just remembering.
So, please, could Substack magically be what I want?
Substack makes their money from subscriptions, just like Medium, but unlike Medium, it’s on a per-blog basis. People don’t subscribe to Substack, they subscribe to your particular blog, or should I say — your email newsletter. Substack is a platform for sending emails; your content is delivered to your audience in this way....Ugh! No no no. I'm not doing an email newsletter.
What's Ghost? Ugh! I hit the wall trying to read the description. I feel like I'm stuck with WordPress, and I already hate it, but it's possible that if I could just force myself to get through the set-up today, I'd have a place that would look beautiful, have a proper membership wall, and offer a fine environment for unmoderated, troll-free commenting. I need to do that, but I've got to tell you, I get so disgusted looking at anything technical about web design that I am always 5 seconds away from quitting altogether. I cannot go on with Blogger, at least not with a comments section, and I can't seem to get myself over the threshold into the new place. I don't know that this new place that I need can be created within WordPress, and it's very hard to work with it without knowing that I can, in the end, get what I want. I really hate Wordpress. Hate.
ADDED: Let me just show you a screenshot from the page where I am stuck trying to set up a WordPress blog:
What is all that?! "Title Attribute"? "CSS Classes"? "Link Relationship"?!! As if the parenthetical "XFN" explains it! It's just abusive. I hate them.
AND: I can't deal with the complexity. I need to stay within the flow that has served me well here on Blogger. I'm just going to keep moderation on all the time, and approve comments when I'm in the mood to read them.
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237 comments:
«Oldest ‹Older 201 – 237 of 237well no guild, steyn is a jewel, seeing through this Wuhan shamarama, the mask hijab, which makes us feel like the robots in the black hole, alas there is no stopping, only slowing down the prog juggernaut,
Tomcc,
"It makes me wonder if Prof. Althouse could persuade big G to block certain IP addresses."
Glad I'm not the only one thinking along this line, but... no to the IP address ban. Very few home users have static IP addresses, and so all it takes is a few hours, or in the best case days, of downtime, or an equipment upgrade at your ISP and now you're on a different address and some other poor bloke who uses the same ISP is being blocked.
Jim Grey,
With WP you can require users to sign up to comment.
Squarespace.com
Thanks for the suggestions, but there is no way I'm going to "reach out" to someone I don't know.
It seems like forever ago, but I still recall the Althouse plan to move away from Blogger onto your own site aptly named "Althou.se." At the time you had literally outgrown Blogger's technical expertise. Blog history was disappearing before your eyes.
Then you chose to work with with boy genius Joe Malchow in some way to set up a WP blog. He had just completed a new look for Power Line. I see that his name remains in their "About" section.
I think most of the commenters commenting on the comments don't understand the problem.
As I understand it, it isn't obnoxious commenters. AA does not seem to mind the bickering and childishness--and honestly, it can be worked around for those who want to converse about something and not engage in puerile personal attacks.
The problem is one or two malicious people. I have encountered a few of these comments before Meade or AA get to them. They are a different animal. This is not Inga and I going back and forth. This is a personality disorder at work. Threats to AA's well-being. Creepy observations that make one wonder if this creature is watching AA in real time. Violence. While I suspect this creature is just very good with web searches, and thus able to make its comments seem preternaturally on-target, I don't know enough about this world to say for certain that the threats can be ignored.
Correct me if I am wrong, Ann, but your moderation burden would be far lighter if you could make these truly frightening commenters disappear.
What I wonder, though, is ... does that solve the problem? Is this/these creature(s) controlled if you control comments? If it is content to ruin your experience in hosting the blog, then ridding yourself of it solves the problem. If it is more malignant....
I guess I am asking if you feel safe--in the real world.
“” Interim idea for the days/weeks until you "flatten the curve" of anxiety on making a decision:...”
Thanks but no way would I do something like that. My rest is just to keep moderation on and only put stuff through when I have an idle moment or when I want to read comments.
“... niche of managed WordPress hosting (see wpengine.com, et al), and WordPress.org, the organization from which one can download WordPress for free, install and run it on your host of choice, configure it exactly to your needs...”
I saw that, but it was an additional frustration. I would need to research the various hosting businesses and choose one and do a transaction with them and connect it with whatever I was getting from WP. The paywall stuff would be another thing like that. Maybe so would the comments. I did not have the patience to do all those different things on my own. It wasn’t fluid and obvious so I just hated the whole experience.
The solution is obvious: you need a second husband to be the moderator.
I almost never read blogs without comments. Rather than only the received wisdom from the solo writer himself, what interests me is what happens in the multiple dimensions when the blogger's opinion or other stylings (e.g., word associations) gets opened up under examination by the readers themselves, both pro and con.
If you make a switch to no comments now, for your devoted followers, whether they just grew up that way or not, you will forever be their single-named celebrity Althouse. For those just arriving, though, you may only be some aging retiree who apparently used to teach law.
Either way, the thing you spent 15+ prior years doing will have to make it going forward solely on the strength of your voice alone. Perhaps this will lead to a resizing actually longed for.
The blogger Rod Dreher is famous for having broken every commenter on his site on the wheel not only of his personal moderation but also, until TAC forced him to switch to Disqus*, of being little more than verbal concubinage for him to alter, edit, excerpt, republish, and generally merely use as convenient free product which ended up paying him well. That is to say, like it or not, one's moderation policies inevitably reveal how the blogger really feels about his readers, those interested enough in his product to comment in particular. Sadly, this eludes many it should not.
As others may have mentioned, the WordPress platform allows one to do things as stringent as requiring registration to as limber as merely requiring moderation of new and unknown commenters - all automatically. The price, of course, is mastering the tabula rasa of the platform itself.
Blogging without commenters, though, must be very much like teaching law to only mute and unresponsive students.
*Those who use Disqus often don't realize they are actually supporting the Disqus community primarily, their own efforts secondarily. And, as others have mentioned, getting one's comment marked as spam, by the Disqus AI itself or by a savvy blogger like Mr. Dreher who often uses it to eliminate those he dislikes, can end up causing cascading problems for those unwitting unfortunates with Disqus accounts.
https://www.aleksandreia.com/2016/07/01/disqus-detected-as-spam/
"I saw that, but it was an additional frustration. I would need to research the various hosting businesses and choose one and do a transaction with them and connect it with whatever I was getting from WP. The paywall stuff would be another thing like that. Maybe so would the comments. I did not have the patience to do all those different things on my own. It wasn’t fluid and obvious so I just hated the whole experience."
This entire post is beginning to seem moot from its inception.
Ann Althouse said...
“” Interim idea for the days/weeks until you "flatten the curve" of anxiety on making a decision:...”
Thanks but no way would I do something like that. My rest is just to keep moderation on and only put stuff through when I have an idle moment or when I want to read comments.
Moderation tends to inspire comments actually pertaining to the subject. Without immediate back and forth, a large amount of clutter is eliminated.
Obviously a word search for your nemesis allows for deletion of those comments before publication which eliminates any potential responses.
Still gonna be some back and forth, but not much.
New hosting site may be more aggravation than moderation is.
Main thing is to maintain the continuity. Over sixteen years without missing a day? Mighty impressive. Thick and thin, rain and snow, sunshine and retirement. War and electionsto and fro..and yet, she persists.
Do what you want. You don't need anyone's permission. But if you eliminate the comments, I won't read your blog. You usually just throw out a topic and the comments make this blog. My comments, not at all. Your mileage may vary.
THEOLDMAN
I may read or scan over the comments of the asshole commenters, but it's not big deal. I learn a lot from the people on this blog.
FullMoon,
Moderation of comments posted in response to something AA posts is not all that onerous--as you note, it tends to keep people on-topic.
Moderation of the evening cafe will be it's death-knell. The whole point is the community back-and-forth. I have been on it almost every night since the lock-down because I crave interaction beyond phone calls with my family, can't bear anymore WebEx-type events (get those all day, every day), and learn fascinating things from people who know about stuff I don't know about, like ancient wars.
And I only speak for myself, but I am "virtually" fond of many of the commenters, even the ones who always are strangely off-topic, posting poetry or apprising us of the antics of the characters in whatever TV show they are watching.
If moderation continues on the evening thread, I will go elsewhere for the experience. There are a couple blog sites with erudite commenters--Ace of Spades, particularly. If most of us do that, that will be a loss to this blog.
Ann,
Hit me up offline. I've been building WP sites for 15 years. Have some ideas for you that address the security concerns.
Do any of these platforms allow a reader to have free access to read the comments, but only have to pay if they want to make comments?
Moderation of the evening cafe will be it's death-knell. The whole point is the community back-and-forth. I have been on it almost every night since the lock-down because I crave interaction beyond phone calls with my family,
Simple. Moderation off after 10, delete everything in A.M.
Old timers here sometimes save the most vicious, interesting stuff for after meadhouse retires. Generally around 9 central time.
Oh, and, try OK Cupid etc. for interaction. DO NOT SEND MONEY OR NUDES.
Jeff Brokaw said...
“Plus it seems to be a place for right wing content. I don't want that branding on me.”
Doubtful — Dave Rubin started it and he is about individual rights and freedom above all. Not a right winger by any stretch of the imagination.
Left-wing dominance of media and pop culture result in the defacto understanding that anything not uniformly and exclusively left wing is dangerously right-wing. Althouse already experiences this with people referring to her blog as right wing.
_____________________
Maybe the best plan is to wait until the lockdown is over, then Mary will go back to work and post less frequently. Don't accept the pressure for a permanent solution to a temporary problem.
Ken B said...
Achilles
You are missing the point as ever. To Althouse this blog is an expressive endeavor, a form of creativity, an artistic creation. The last thing she wants is to associate with a group, any group, pushing a political agenda. Much less a trashy group she doesn’t admire — even if it would make her life easier.
We are all giving unsolicited advice.
She has several options all with drawbacks.
She can have a pain in the ass Word Press site that is slow and going to get hacked.
She can sign up for any number of site services that work by pushing email lists of her subscribers garbage ads.
She can have a "trashy" content group of somewhat known people provide a semi-custom platform for free.
I am just pointing out that "trashy" group of people provide much more accurate information than the NYT's or WAPO or really any of our corporate media.
I am also pointing out you are a liar who misrepresents other people's words and posts in bad faith because you are stupid and dishonest.
She can also just let the comment section go. It is just words on the internet and nothing of any real importance happens here.
I like Word Press fine for my author website. It does what it needs to do- give me a web presence for anyone looking me up. I don't post enough for people to check in every day to see what I have to say, but that's what Facebook and Twitter are for. I don't have any illusions about my ability to say something interesting every day. I write books, not a blog.
That said, it's a nice site and loads really fast. If I wanted to run a daily blog it's certainly up to it.
I did have to wrestle with it for a few days until I understood how to make changes. It's not the easiest thing to do, but it's much more flexible than Blogger.
johnllynch.com
The comments up to this point are indicative of the readers of this blog. People give a damn, and want this blog to continue. The trolls are clearly the problem, one or two of them seem, to me, to have mental issues.
beyond that, i've learned to avoid a few of the night time salons, due to the viciousness and petty behavior of the trolls. But even then, it is possible to follow intelligent interesting discussions are many topics, which are often laugh out loud funny.
I don't think there is another blog that attracts so many interesting people, who do fascinating work, and seem to generally enjoy life.
I rarely comment myself, but would miss the comment section.
If you are unable to find a solution to the problem, no comments would have to work.
You and Meade run one of the nicest salons on the net. I do hope it can continue.
Okay Althouse, I see what's happening now, but I'm still not sure why you want to bail on Blogger beyond comment moderation. You've had a good run with Blogger all these years, and you even had Blogger save all your comments at one point. Are you going to do that again, or just leave "Althouse" up as a repository and history of your nearly two-decades-long blogging avocation?
To AA:
In the interim (before you make your decision), how about seeing what the effect of giving NEGATIVE FEEDBACK might bring.
When a comment is deleted, it is presently marked by:
(1) This comment has been removed by the author.
(2) This comment has been removed by an administrator (or somesuch).
(3) This comment has been removed by the author (with the NAME OF THE MISCREANT who posted the comment). In full view, for everyone to see who it was.
3 seems presently used a lot less frequently than 1 or 2. Possibly there may be other options to use.
The point is that (unless one is a masochist) most people dislike being called out for public shaming (by 3) and would likely modify their aberrant behavior.
I also think turning on moderation for the Cafes at night is a very useful idea because it would discourage the present inane back and forthy personal chatter that has nothing to do with the discussion of a useful topic...and thereby reduce the moderation burden.
I've used wordpress from the beginning for my blog. I drop the blog every few years and pick it up again, and there's (personally) daunting updating that needs to be done. My husband or a friend who runs a website for a living gets me over the hump very quickly, then the rest seems intuitive enough, even for a computer luddite like me. I ignore 95% of the stuff in admin.
Of course you have a huge readership and comment section, so I don't know if wordpress is as good for those things, but as a person who absolutely hates dealing with computer programs, I've had good experiences with Wordpress by just ignoring pretty much everything but the posts themselves.
I would miss the commenters here. This is the only blog I read regularly, except cop blogs. In addition to your content and the comments being interesting, you're playing a big role in the invention of blogging as a medium. It's like getting to read Samuel Pepys contemporaneously.
Mark Steyn has all his content available but only subscription payers may comment.
(3) This comment has been removed by the author (with the NAME OF THE MISCREANT who posted the comment). In full view, for everyone to see who it was.
This happens in the comments when you click the post title on the main page. Killfile also works there. It's when you go to the blogger page to comment that the name disappears and killfile doesn't work.
It's ridiculous that there isn't a version of Killfile for the moderator. Hasn't anyone learned to code that?
Ann please don't abolish comments!
I've read your blog daily but almost never commented.
But the comments are an enriching feature. It is akin to music. You introduce a theme and commenters develop it in counterpoint -- not without an occasional discord -- resolved in a final harmony.
Ralph L said...
The solution is obvious: you need a second husband to be the moderator.
Are you nuts? Talk about work.
Thankless chores are what *children* are for. Though I guess she could have Meade WP-trained.
Of course, somebody could just pay the three-named lawyerette and the Michigan LLR a visit, and ask that that they stop.
Haven't had the time to read through all of this, but the only other option I see is to have someone answer questions you have in public without touching your site and do it in a clear cut way. There are many people, like myself, that would be willing to help you out and could do it in the open.
It would benefit others having the same questions as well.
Althouse, I think you're kidding yourself if you think you can dump the comments. You love the comments. You're just tired of the hassle dealing with the trolls. If there's no better alternative, stay on Blogger and find a way to handle commenting without going crazy.
I come for content and the comments. I wish I commented more, but as another reader posted above, sometimes I get in so late I don't have much to add nor will I have much impact on the thread. I guess I'm just posting to you in that sense. I hope you read and post all the positive comments, and not moderate those away thought as insignificant.
Hi Ann,
I realize that you don't know me, but I have read your posts for years and years, and I've enjoyed them immensely.
I also build custom WordPress sites for small businesses to augment my retirement income.
I worked as a developer for the USAF in the 70s, for EDS and a Fortune 500 company in the 80s. I was an Apple Evangelist in the period just after Guy Kawasaki’s departure, and a Product Manager at Microsoft in the 90s for an operating system for small devices and embedded systems. Sprinkled in there I worked for two technology startups and at AT&T in different roles. Today, I have clients who are retired, and are luddites who don’t want to be bothered learning much of anything about how it all works. I treat them with great kindness and patience, and I fix their PCs and sometimes their Macs, along with building and maintaining their websites.
WordPress offers two different directions for you to chose from to get started: a hosted WordPress site on a platform that you or your designated assistant or team control, or a site on WordPress.com, which requires less work on your part, and can have most of the same capabilities – in some cases, for a recurring monthly fee.
If you proceeded with a hosted WordPress site, you can allow comments from specific individuals who you preapprove, and completely block comments from individuals who you haven’t preapproved. You can hold all comments until you approve them individually, and if you’re tired of reading comments about a post, you can simply ignore them, and they’ll remain in the approval queue, essentially in limbo forever, for that post.
I would build your site on top of a managed host that uses Google Cloud servers, and I would front end it with a solution that would protect it from a host of attacks using the same technologies that protect some of the sites for the largest companies on the web.
I would import your entire site, and take great care to preserve your carefully curated tags and links as much as possible. Some things will not import correctly, though. Some media sources either take down or change the URL – the link address – for posts, and that will happen more and more to your very old posts from years ago.
I would do the set up and provide the hosting for free. Your site could be moved to another hosted site if you ever decided to do so, or moved to another platform entirely by another expert, and I would support you if you ever chose to make either of those moves at no charge.
All that said, given who you are and the prestige that it would bring, I think that there could be interest by the WordPress.com team in helping you to move to the WordPress.com platform, which at its lowest tier works much like Blogger does. WordPress.com hosts large business websites, and hosts high traffic, high profile sites for celebrities, too.
One feature that is common to both hosted WordPress sites that I described and sites on WordPress.com is a set of features that enabled highly tailorable comment moderation. I can’t post a screen shot for you, but if you go to this link https://wordpress.com/support/settings/discussion-settings/view-all/, and scroll to the section headed “Other Comment Settings”, you’ll see the prerequisites that you can establish to protect each post before a comment is approved and visible, and how you can automatically close commenting down after a period of days. You can also block comments that contain links to web sites and comments that contain trigger words, including partial words.
Lots of tech guys offering help.
Might be advantageous to include your email address.
Do it in bold and all caps, sure to get Ann or Meades attention.
During moderation, they can save it and delete prior to posting
Have been preoccupied with other things and so hadn't been reading here as often as I do most of the time; didn't realize that the comments moderation business had become a burning issue again.
I'd be sorry not to read several of the commenters but, eh.
I approve how Mark Steyn and Ricochet deal with comments: pay a fee, and comment away (but I don't pay the fee; I might, here). A professional presumably was involved in setting those websites up, and apparently Althouse won't go that route.
Hope no one is losing any sleep over this!
Thomas the Train is a beloved and iconic character from the popular children's series. He is a cheerful and adventurous steam engine who captivates young audiences with his exciting railway adventures. Join Thomas and his friends on their journey of friendship, teamwork, and exciting escapades in the world of Sodor.
Thomas the train
Thomas the Train is a beloved and iconic character from the popular children's series. He is a cheerful and adventurous steam engine who captivates young audiences with his exciting railway adventures. Join Thomas and his friends on their journey of friendship, teamwork, and exciting escapades in the world of Sodor.
Thomas the train
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