“We do not believe any group of men adequate enough or wise enough to operate without scrutiny or without criticism. We know that the only way to avoid error is to detect it, that the only way to detect it is to be free to inquire. We know that in secrecy error undetected will flourish and subvert.” –J. Robert Oppenheimer
I am planning to create a “forum extension” to this site, which will allow for growth and “full free speech zones”, without significantly changing the nature of THIS site.
I decided AGAINST simply bringing The U Tree over to Epik. I don’t really feel like that site has much of a future. I don’t feel that it is as conducive as a full-fledged forum to either growthper se, or growth of free speech in particular.
But before I even think about building that forum annex, I would like to ask – WHICH of our 8 domains would you like to see used for that forum? I am playing with that stuff right now.
We have the following:
theqtree.com
theqtree.org
theqtree.net
theqtree.us
theqtree.info
theqtree.life
theqtree.site
theqtree.xyz
I plan to keep theqtree.com for THIS site. But what about the others?
Which ONE of the other 7 names would be good for the forum?
Please let me know your opinions and your reasoning.
Thanks!
W
The topic of a forum has been discussed previously.
All wpDiscuz addons are being developed by wpDiscuz developers at gVectors Team. These addons help us to keep top level development of the free wpDiscuz plugin. All essential and even dozens of extra-cool features are already available for free in the core wpDiscuz plugin. There are not any limits, any pro and paid versions of wpDiscuz. We have another dozens of awesome features in our to-do list which will be added for free in the future releases.
Thank you! Sincerely yours, gVectors Team
The full package of add-ons which was purchased for this site includes 18 add-ons, each of which has a full page of features. We have only added 4 of these add-ons. We probably don’t want ALL 18 of them, based on feedback from users here, but we definitely want MORE OF THEM, because some features in some of the add-ons appear to answer requests and complaints from users.
I say “appear to”, because some of these bells and whistles are ANNOYING. Some are “less so”.
Sometimes we have to TRY SOMETHING OUT to see if we like it.
I don’t THINK that top page numbering of comments is possible through these features, but we don’t really know positively until we’ve dug into them. wpDiscuz is full of interesting surprises.
My plan is to – as quickly as possible – install more of the add-ons and tweak the features ON or OFF, etc., to obtain a STABLE commenting system. It is after THAT system is obtained, that I will begin making slower code changes – securely and according to design – that will address any desires not fixable through the add-ons themselves.
Please use this thread as much as possible to register your thoughts, opinions, suggestions, and observations regarding the new features as they roll out. I will sticky this intermittently as I add new features, so that people can find it easily. Don’t be afraid to speak up.
YEAH. You have problems with this wonderful new site. We know that. But you are hesitant to bug THE WOLF any more than you already have.
We respect that. But we need you to tell us what is happening and why, because if we don’t, THIS WONDERFUL SITE may end up being destroyed by WordPress. Errrr – I mean WordPress.com.
Speaking of which, how many people here have been LOCKED OUT for “commenting too fast”?
Yeah. That was a beauty.
Thank you, all who reported that. Please SPEAK UP here and REMIND US if you got that red-box warning – I want to DOCUMENT IT HERE.
OK? Please let me know if you got that pop-up, and particularly if it kept you from commenting.
I want to hear it AGAIN. Right here.
I AM COLLECTING EVIDENCE.
You see, my definition of site security is less about who is watching us or how they are watching us, and more about ARE THEY TAMPERING WITH OUR GOOD THING?
SOCIAL HACKING is what I’m most concerned about.
WordPress.com – which kicked Sundance and CTH off its platform for political reasons, is not as big of a social hacker as Twitter and Facebook, but thanks to their AXEY-METH (Akismet) POST-RANSOM CRIMEWARE / MAFIA-PROTECTION RACKET MALWARE, they are close to it. The WordPress scam works a bit differently from the Twitter scam, but it works.
By my being the ONLY administrator / moderator on this site, and having (at present) ZERO moderation filters other than “PRIVATE_MESSAGE_TO_WLOF” (spelled correctly), I can “see through” all the games and all the con jobs that are foisted on honest patriots by the outside world, OR by the platform itself.
Anyway, a bit more about the “red box scam”. The pop-ups telling people they were posting too fast, and then BLOCKING them from commenting.
This was due to a setting in WordPress, as part of WordPress.com’s “JetPack” plugin, which supposedly prevents brute force attacks on the site. I want to thank grandmaintexas and her DH for helping me out there, with the critical insight that this censorship problem actually stemmed from that very particular setting.
Turning it off – BOOM – problem GONE.
Now – I’m not going to show WordPress.com all my cards here, but trust me – that setting did not initially block people from posting. The censorship SNUCK IN LATER. It was also very specific WHO it went after. I do not believe that it was accidental, either. I believe the targets were INTENTIONAL. But even if I’m wrong about that, it’s a lot like the China Virus. WordPress – and specifically JET PACK – is responsible.
Now bear in mind – JetPack is also responsible for the “bar-bell” notifications. That is primarily WHY we have JetPack installed as a plugin.
I want to ask people here – do you TRUST the notification system? The “black bar, white bell, and orange dot”. Do you trust that it always reports everything to you faithfully and without any kind of bias?
I may or may not be suspicious of JetPack’s notification behavior at this very moment, but it is my job, being in charge of security, to trust it exactly NEVER. I am faithful NOT to the software, nor even to its possibly long and glorious history, but rather to its INTEGRITY OF FUNCTION AT THIS MOMENT – an ephemerally correct thing which may or may not be true, but can never be assumed.
I am faithful to PRINCIPLES and to those who – like me – strive to UPHOLD THEM.
More about trust.
I most assuredly DO NOT TRUST WordPress.com not to #### with us again, via JetPack and WordPress.com authentication (meaning when you log in using your WordPress password and identity).
I want to IMPART THIS SUSPICION on all who enter here. I want you ALL to be my EYES AND EARS – so that not IF but WHEN WordPress.com decides to mess with us again, ALL OF YOU will be prepared. We almost lost some of your BEST FRIENDS HERE to the last scam.
As much as I utterly DESPISE “process over people”, I always found MEETINGS OF ACTUAL GEEKS WITH MINIMAL MANAGEMENT useful when there were too many people to look over one person’s shoulder comfortably in a GEEK CUBICLE. So – “declared meetings” have their uses. Here, if only to consolidate suggestions so I can find them later.
My mission in moving us to a WOKE-FREE SITE was so I could quickly get back to WAR in the immediate future. That is where my next posts will be going – back to POLITICS and away from I.T.
*** WAR ***
However, right now, we do have a lot of good geeky thoughts flying around. I want to capture them, even if I am going to INFO-GUNS right away (because THE BUSINESS is ultimately WHY WE ARE HERE).
Thoughts can go here. Including:
whether we want to STICK WITH THE NEW COMMENTING SYSTEM
whether I should get the tweet and video plugin extensions NOW (answer to above being YES)
features that we absolutely need NOW to FIGHT
features we need to add – but which will probably be LATER
tips and tricks for others to get online and FIGHTING
anything GEEKY
OK? GOOD! Have at it! Just remember – we FIGHT FIRST and repair the broken weapons LATER, when there is a break in the fighting.
So we STAND NOW!
W
Actors Henry Fonda and James Coburn on the set of Universal Studios movie ” Midway” in 1976. (Photo by Michael Ochs Archives/Getty Images)
THE Q TREE CALLS ALL ITS TRUTH WARRIORS TO COME HOME AND ASSEMBLE FOR BATTLE!
Come inside!
Relax! Have a seat!
Or sit out on the deck!
Please check in and let your friends know that you FOUND our new home. Lurkers, former members, old friends from CTH, and everybody else – you are welcome to make that first post right here! Introduce yourselves!
UPDATE: The move is complete, and we are now ON THE NEW SITE – RIGHT HERE!!!
At 1:30 AM Eastern Time on December 4, 2020, the old site (wqth.wordpress.com) closed behind a “Coming Soon” banner, and two hours later, the NEW site opened HERE:
Having shut down comments on the old site, I will slowly decommission it, possibly keeping it as an archive and “back-up”, but all activity will shift to the new site.
We were ready WELL before 6 AM.
There will be some minor fixes over the next day or two.
The old site (wqth.wordpress.com) remains up, with a “GO TO THE NEW SITE” message at the top, but has been closed to comments, and will be decommissioned later, at some future date and time.
If this is your first visit to the site, please visit our WELCOME THREAD!!!
If you are interested in understanding our approach to QAnon, please visit out ABOUT PAGE.
NEWS will continue be posted BELOW.
Thank you, God bless you, and God Bless America!
W
JetPack News
You know the little bell at the right end of the black bar from WordPress? The one that gives you notifications about likes and replies to your comments? The one that makes it very easy to have a conversation with somebody – or to check if people have replied to your comments?
That “bell notifier” is powered by a plugin called JetPack, from WordPress.com (DOT COM). While we are moving OFF WP.com, we are still using both WordPress itself, from WordPress.org (DOT ORG), and the JetPack plugin (free version).
If you want those notifications, you have to allow WP.com to link to your account here using JetPack. I have done everything I can in settings to make that simple yet reliable, based on our early testing of the new site.
If you want to get “bell notifications” for posts here, you just need to do the following:
WHITELIST this site, or allow it to use ALL COOKIES, particularly for wordpress.com
Be sure to have your browser remember your login username and password
Find JetPack in your SETTINGS, and LINK TO WORDPRESS.COM
If your first comment gets moderated, wait for approval, then try another comment
Get my attention if you have problems. Others may offer some help.
If you have done all this correctly, you will start seeing “bell notifications” of replies to any comments on this site.
Right now, 23 of our 56 registered users have JetPack notifications working!
There is another notifier on any page with comments – the “green circle with orange numbers”. That is a “new comment” notifier in wpDiscuz, the commenting plugin. That plugin is separate from JetPack, even though the two plugins both handle the same comment data. Likes in JetPack are not reflected in the “+1 / -1”, like / dislike system in wpDiscuz.
I will discuss the wpDiscuz plugin more later.
wpDiscuz News
We seem to have settled on a new comment layout manager, known simply as [COUGH] “Number Two”. This one has nice vertical lines to show indentation, but it also has fairly wide text. We were using “Number One” at first.
More Information: https://wpdiscuz.com/docs/wpdiscuz-7/customization/comment-layouts/
Number 1
Number 2
Number 3
We have CHANGED the voting method from “up/down” to “standard likes”. That was a fairly easy decision by our members!
We have also ENLARGED THE FONT and MADE IT BLACK – this got almost entirely POSITIVE response.
There will be more technical discussions – stay tuned!
OK – here is an update on the new site. I’m putting it here ON the new site, so people can start getting used to commenting over here.
I have decided to go for SMOOTHNESS OF TRANSITION rather than CLEAN FAST BREAK.
PATIENCE. It’s a virtue.
Most of the posts transferred. We only have about a week at the end of November, plus whatever days in December before we move, to be moved later. Almost all our images have transferred. If we’re not OCD and/or perfectionist about things, the copying of the sites has been 99.9% successful.
On the PLUS side, we can use more modern commenting systems that use modern technologies like REST and AJAX to avoid reloading entire pages for EVERY SINGLE COMMENT. In particular, we are now using the wpDiscuz plugin, which is a bit like Discus for WordPress.
The main NEGATIVE, however, is that we are having a LOT of trouble getting comments to integrate with the WordPress-dot-com notification system which is part of their “JetPack” – what most of us refer to as “The Bell” or “The Bell Icon”, located in the “WordPress.com Menu Bar” – a.k.a. “The Black Band”.
While I was able to get SOME notifications about replies on the new site to propagate in the “bell notification system”, most people saw either spotty or no performance this way. This may be a function of whether individuals have properly identified themselves to JetPack on the new site – something that is frankly too tenuous to be trusted. We cannot count on this to communicate.
Bottom line – we no longer have “bell icon notifications” on this site. I will keep trying to get them, but they’re not likely to happen soon.
I do have some good workarounds that I’ve been using. The WordPress-dot-com comment page is actually a pretty good ticker of posts as they are happening. I’m not sure if everybody can see it, or how much they can see, but it may be a start.
I did get the “Home” and “Contact” links to appear in the top menu. See above!
I will have the sidebar updated to match – ROUGHLY – the sidebar on the old site, very soon.
All our categories and key words transferred. All our old comments. I *MAY* lock the older posts, but not yet committed to this. WordPress has a setting for closing commenting after 14 days. It’s something I plan to consider.
During testing, we ran into some interesting capacity for EDITING OF COMMENTS that looked like a bug. Turns out that this capability has always been there for AUTHORS on their own posts. Daughn actually found and used this capability to deal with a flame war on one of her posts, once, in the early days of this blog. Otherwise, she followed my preferred practice of NOT editing things, but rather letting the record stand – 100% sunlight – no deletions except under extreme circumstances – KEEP THE EVIDENCE – DON’T DESTROY IT.
This is why we count on authors to show EXTREME integrity, and not everybody is an author here!
Now – one more point.
What would you think about actually becoming a FORUM? Or just ADDING ONE?
I found a plugin that we may REALLY like. It is a plugin for WordPress that creates a FORUM.
SO – if we wanted to actually become a FORUM – we could do it. We could even ease into it, by keeping our current model, but creating a “forum next door” with a link on our main page.
Something to think about.
Bottom line – there are MANY possibilities awaiting us. My first step is simply to get the new house ready for occupancy! From there – who knows?
Have a great week!
W
American actor James Coburn (1928 – 2002) smoking a cigarette. (Photo by Harry Benson/Getty Images)
A link to my previous statement: https://wqth.wordpress.com/2020/11/30/dear-kmag-20201130-open-topic/comment-page-1/#comment-680960
That Statement:
OK – quick announcement. I will put up an article later, but I want to get people started a.s.a.p.
If you’ve ever authored on the old site, you have an Author account on the new site, under your old author credentials, which were imported along with everything else.
I’m asking people to go over and just try to do a fake article as a test. You can entitle it “Author Test – myhandle” if you want, or whatever you want to call it. Just see if your authorship WORKS.
Also, I took a step to make logins easier. I checked two boxes to let “JetPack” handle logins:
WordPress.com login
Learn more
Add an extra layer of security to your website by enabling WordPress.com login and secure authentication. If you have multiple sites with this option enabled, you will be able to log in to every one of them with the same credentials.
[ENABLED] Allow users to log in to this site using WordPress.com accounts
[ENABLED] Match accounts using email addresses [DISABLED] Require accounts to use WordPress.com Two-Step Authentication
We can always turn this back off, but hopefully this will make sign-ins by authors smoother.
Give it a try! I will put up a thread for comments back and forth with me by people testing.
Please keep comments here so that I can keep track of helping people get logged in, etc..
NOTE: Although this after-dinner well-wishing was delayed due to a long list of post-Thanksgiving-dinner chores and duties, performed meticulously and faithfully, it’s still Thanksgiving in California, so here we go.
I just wanted to take this opportunity, after a great Thanksgiving dinner, [Trump supporters all, complete with two pilgrims, an Indian of friendly but mysterious nature, a recent immigrant, and a shaggy dog, maybe not a crowd, but surely in violation of some ridiculous COMVID / SQUADPOX / CHINA VIRUS mandate], to say THANKS TO GOD for our arrival on these EPIK New World shores!
Indeed, as we sat down to our Thanksgiving dinner this evening, we almost “dove in” per the customs of one anonymous diner, were it not for my insistence that we should STOP FIRST to name the things for which we were thankful.
[You will see that, as a PRAYER WARRIOR, I’m LAZY but CUNNING. It’s part of being OLD.]
The personal things went first – lives spared, diseases healed – and then the allegedly bigger things – peace preserved, wars averted. A few generalities – good health and economic blessing. But then the biggie, on which all agreed.
Four years of President Donald Trump. Four years of the greatest president in our lifetimes, against the will of every villain on Earth.
Everybody else seemed ready to say THAT was it – we’re THANKFUL – now let’s eat!
But I could sense that people were worried – that it was “just” four years of President Trump, so I said “WAIT!”
I don’t remember my exact words, missing a few articles and prepositions, and decidedly shortened for the mixed English abilities of our motley American troupe. Half words – half facial expressions – half intuition and half innuendo – as some languages actually are. However, rest assured that these words were both intended and in fact received as the following message.
“It is by the POWER of our THANKS TO GOD for the PAST, that the FUTURE BRIGHTENS. It is by our PRAYERS OF THANKS for what we have RECEIVED, that we might be blessed with MORE. If we want FOUR MORE YEARS of President Donald J. Trump, then – by all means – we must be THANKFUL for the FOUR GREAT YEARS that we have already had!“
With that, we all – quite spontaneously – smiled and held forth our clasped hands, earnestly in prayer, in our somewhat “diverse” faiths in God. I could feel the quiet spirit of true MAGA working among us, and with great confidence, we bowed our heads toward each other, and smiled in full faith. Thankful for the past. Confident in our future. Even our “dive-in diner” uttered a vocal prayer rarely heard.
Note that I did NOT say “we must vow to endeavor to persevere more years of THE BAD CHIEFS OF THE SWAMP.”
Rest assured, Pilgrims and Patriots. America – like God – is with us.
W
PS – There is a hidden joke in here which may not become apparent for a long time. If you figure all or part of it out, just smile! Thanks to Nor’easter for the inspiration of the “endeavor to persevere” theme!
