AskWoody to add blog-like appendage

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My Web folks are working on a melding of the AskWoody site, in its present form, with a Bulletin Board package called bbPress and a companion pack cal
[See the full post at: AskWoody to add blog-like appendage]

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Woody’s Lounge!

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Woody: Have you considered merging AskWoody.com with Eileen’s Lounge? It’s already up and running, and it seems to be the kind of blog you are thinking of having.

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Like deja vu. When did I start the original Woody’s Lounge? Must’ve been … 25 years ago?

Let’s call this one the AskWoody Lounge.

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I approached Eileen’s Lounge a couple of years ago, when I decided that I couldn’t support Penton’s Lounge. Since then, I haven’t had any contact with the folks over there. Still hold them in the highest regard. They have a lot of worthwhile content, and years of experience running a first-rate Lounge.

It’s important to note that the AskWoody Lounge would be based on AskWoody content. As envisioned, my blog posts (and likely blog posts from others, as time goes by) are kind of the anchor point.

So, I dunno. I’d love to graft Eileen’s Lounge onto the AskWoody Lounge – we’d both be better for it, for sure. Not sure how to do it, but I just sent out a feeler. Let’s see what HansV says.

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Look forward to it!

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I also look forward to it.

I often save certain Threads in AskWoody.com as PDFs using a manual archive system.

What makes a forum format so valuable is when the forum software has a robust search interface.

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Ab-so-lutely.

I’m also concerned that tying things to my blog posts will make organization inside the AskWoody Lounge more difficult… I thought about that long and hard, and decided I’d make the blog the horse, with the Lounge as the cart. May have to turn it around some day.

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Woody, I just discovered that whenever someone wants to post something at Eileen’s Lounge, it must be approved by the moderator first.

That’s how you have it set up at AskWoody; but that’s not how things are/were set up at the Penton Lounge.

On AskWoody, when I submit a comment, at least I can see it while waiting for it to be approved; at Eileen’s Lounge, you can’t see a thing till the comment is approved.

I don’t know how that would go over with the crowd that hangs out at AskWoody, who are anxious to get their opinions out there.

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Good point.

My intent – subject to lots of discussion – is to allow registered users to get their posts visible immediately, while anonymous submissions will be subject to approval.

I’m worried about spam, trolling, and the usual stuff that drags things to the shallow end of the gene pool.

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If it can be managed well, as this blog has been, and keep pretty much on-topic, then the forum approach may work out very well here. It does have a certain Back To The Future appeal about it, based on Woody’s Lounge which I used to look into from time to time.

The darker font is a godsend to some of us with older eyes, especially during a long session of tech reading from a variety of sites, yours included.

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+1 on the font.

I thought it was me, since I am currently waiting on my new eyeglasses…

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I like that analogy.

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So what will happen to the current comments? Will they be deleted or preserved? I’m curious about already existing comments.

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I’m hoping they’ll be transferred over to the new format, indexed, and be ready for search.

There’s a whole lotta comments here – about 30,000 – amassed over many years.

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Woo-hoo! Not an early-mid 20’s woo-hoo that could survive a jump and a bounce around or two. A mid-60’s woo-hoo as in “spiritual and philosophy-based” approval. That saves the creaky and broken parts from further damage.

Simply searchable posts would be great, especially if you can archive everything up to the conversion. If that’s too complicated/expensive (often the same), then fully searchable newness and a slog through past archived posts would be OK.

Need another check? (did the first one get there?).

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The first check got here – I finally got the banking situation worked out, and deposited the first round earlier today. Acknowledgments will go up tomorrow.

Another check? ALWAYS appreciated. As you note, it costs samolians to make all of this work.

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Woody (how appropriate), please don’t post any photos of your blog-like appendage

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re: darker font… Thank you!

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Frankly what you have here is fine. Why do you feel you need to change it?

As my dear old pop used to say:

“If it works, don’t fix it!”

-Noel

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I’m having a lot of trouble searching old comments. And I’m getting a lot of comments from people who want to be able to post their own questions. In addition, I’d like to give several people (including you!) the ability to start your own threads.

We’re using a five-pound solution for a ten-pound problem. Six months ago, the traffic was half (or a quarter) of what it is now.

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How long until this takes effect? Also will anonymous users be able to start threads?

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No idea. My web folks are working on it now.

Anonymous users will be able to post on existing threads, but their comments will be moderated. (Sorry, but I’m deleting about 1,000 spam posts a month.)

But note you can create an account that’s called anything you like, and nobody will be able to see your email address but me.

The ability to start new threads will be limited to those I know and trust.

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I just worry that you’re going to change it to something that goes out of control and doesn’t actually work. I’ve been to a number of forums that have “upgraded” their software only to find even basic editing functions don’t work, and the place becomes overly frustrating to visit.

Clear information exchange is the goal. To be a bit blunt: Just be careful not to obfuscate the goal by screwing up the tech.

-Noel

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Gotcha… and I’ll rely on you to yell real loud if I blow it!

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Okay. I like the idea of having a forum more. Although I think your blog posts should still have comments for questions relating to that post. But your site, your choice.

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Yep, I do, too. That’s why I need to link from the posts directly into the forum. It’s going to be tricky. Windows Secrets does it by maintaining a section of the forum just for blog posts. I’d rather not go that route, if I can avoid it – I’d like to have blog discussions appear inline with the rest of the forum.

It’s gonna be interesting.

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@Woody,

I totally see why you’d want to give only a select few people carte blanche to start their own threads at will,

but would you consider a halfway-house for other folks
(of course only for registered and logged-in people, not anonymous guests),

where if there were a relevant topic that they would really like to see a thread started for,
they could submit their new-thread suggestion,
and the moderator could approve or deny it — with the moderator being listed as the author of the new thread, but stating in the first post the name of the member who suggested the idea?

(Sort of the way you do now, where occasionally you will take a suggestion or a question that was emailed to you, and make a separate blogpost for it here.)

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(Actually, I suppose if you are happy to continue to allow anonymous posting,
then an anonymous person could also submit a new-thread idea,
and as long as the topic were relevant and reasonable,
and the poster of the actual halfway-house threads would be the moderator anyway,
then it wouldn’t matter if the topic suggestion came anonymously or from a named member.)

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Will it be possible to register without using any 3rd-party (like e-mail)?

TIP: Instead of e-mail, you could use a hashcash implementation (example https://github.com/007/hashcash-js) for registration to prevent spam accounts.

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I’ll look into it, but I’m leery of combining Hashcash with bbPress.

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+1

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I’ll have one section of the Lounge that’ll be devoted specifically to this.

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Off-topic:

Have you folks seen what they have done to Toblerone bars in the UK?

Apparently the manufacturer is blaming Brexit for increasing the cost of making the bar, so they are reducing the amount of chocolate in each bar by RUINING ITS DISTINCTIVE MOUNTAIN-RANGE SHAPE.

It’s no longer the Alps, it’s a bicycle rack!

Here is a good photo of the old and new bars side-by-side:
(NOTE: Please disregard the political-sounding name of the following link — it only takes you to an image of the chocolate bars. This was the best photo of the before-and-after Toblerone comparison that I could find.)
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/nov/10/donald-trump-us-election#img-3

Here is an article on the topic:
“The change to Toblerone bars is an act of desecration”
http://blogs.spectator.co.uk/2016/11/toblerones-new-bar-symbolises-decline-modern-capitalism/

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Yep, it’s way off topic, but I found it fascinating. Somebody has discerned that the new ridges are the perfect size for storing laptops.

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Yeah sounds good to me some way of indexing popular topics and valuble tech advice would be really awsome there are some solutions in here that grizzled old Windoze vets can use. Lets face it M$s much maligned products have a bad press at times but contain a myriad of solutions tips and tricks that any level of user can use. I would, respectfully, request that some of the more knowledgable contibuters here (if willing) get theyre own column/preference and maybe a procedure of the week for mitigation of the eccentricities of WUD and other invaluble OS tips, just a thought Woody any way i kinda cheat here as i copy and paste the real good stuff for future reference because as you say to go wading back to look is an onerous excercie

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+1

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It’s funny how when things are really serious/heavy as has been lately in this world of ours……….. that something like this becomes a big issue! Personally what happened to Cadbury when the company was bought out was far worse…….. and they also changed their Roses Chocolate wrappers which caused a big, big stir at the time! We are creatures of habit and when something like Toblerone or Roses choc wrappers are changed all hell breaks loose…. our comfort zone has been encroached upon! LT

Follow your dream!
Unless it’s the one where you’re at work in your underwear during a fire drill.

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