“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
Yeah, good luck with that. Just read from here down to the TL;DR if you need to get out of here fast.
There are two main ways that people try to infiltrate this site.
One is by hacking into existing accounts by attempted logins using guesswork on credentials. We have a nice solution to that problem which I will not get into.
The second is by making comments, as either new commenters, or spoofed existing commenters, which comments have to be approved. This second form of infiltration, by comments seeking approval, is what we will discuss today.
So what is happening there?
TL;DR
Somebody just stepped up the level of phony commenting, by using AI to generate a “spam” comment which is substantially more convincing than our normal phony poster spam. It’s probably Ukrainians backed by the CIA, but we’ll never know for sure. The bottom line is that the latest AI allows non-English speakers to generate much better phony messaging, as you will see. I expect that intelligent, targeted, AI comments and “solutions” to the problem will be part of the other side’s big attack before the election.
Background
Since my recent whistle-blow about Boeing, we’ve had some obvious CIA probes, which I have mentioned obliquely in my own comments, and this incoming AI comment may actually be part of that campaign.
For those who are unfamiliar with “spam comments on blogs and websites”, I am presenting some background which others can skip over. Either way, the following sections present some history on my having to deal with spam comments. This provides context to what I just noticed.
Spam and Anti-Spam as a Pincer Move
Comments on this site are one of the primary vectors used by people trying to get into here to undermine things. By far the biggest portion of these comments are spam – people simply trying to post ads, links, and junk.
But things get worse. Beyond spam as a problem, there are fake solutions to the spam problem, and those are also very insidious. The combination of “spam and anti-spam” can be used to censor and control.
I strongly suspect that anti-AI-spam software, with a strong, designed, and desired side-effect of censorship, will be part of future problems, too.
It’s a lot like control by virus and vaccine, if you know what I mean!
Anyway, let’s dig into spam-vs-anti-spam, because it explains a lot about spam comments.
Anti-Spam as a Trojan Horse for Censorship
We have a very nice spam filter, which actually WORKS, because it’s not the phony spam filter called Akismet, which is supplied for “free” by WordPressDotCom. WordPress.com pretends that Akismet is a different company, but it’s just a dodge. Akismet is WordPress.
I spent years dealing with “bugs” in the Akismet and JetPack plug-ins, before I realized that those bugs are actually features for the other side. Akismet, for example, doesn’t like certain wonderful ladies and gentlemen on this site, such as Duchess01, scott467, GA/FL, Linda, and other commenters, both past and present. Akismet would basically hide these people’s comments as “spam”, trying to annoy them and get them to leave the site.
Imagine if Duchess wasn’t here. We would be half-naked, spiritually. And that’s not any way to be, in the middle of a spiritual war. Armor up, baby! I am SO GLAD that I fought the good fight against Akismet, and managed to keep Duchess on the site. Listening to the Lord with my heart is ALWAYS one of the smartest things I can do.
Fake anti-spam software is an amazing form of censorship. WordPressDotCom has some other ways of doing that, too, through “defects” in the JetPack plugin’s features. Those “defects” prevent people from posting. I was very fortunate that Linda’s husband knew which feature to turn off to get out of one of these “bugs”, and that was the beginning of my road to freedom from WordPressDotCom shenanigans.
Hiding weaponized software as carefully fed and watered “bugs” was a sharp gig, but it was too obvious to a developer, coder, builder, tester and debugger like me. Once I figured out that it was THEM and not us, I pressured Akismet in various ways to “fix things” for the particular people who were being locked out, despite the fact that Akismet makes this hard as hell. They slow-walked me through various processes, but each time I would up the ante of public disclosure quickly and exponentially, until they would very rapidly BTFO.
All of this was later solved by getting off WordPressDotCom and having our own, pure, WordPress DOT ORG site.
Here are three prior posts where I called out Automattic – the company behind WP.com. I got INSTANT BTFO on their censorship with these posts.
On our new site – this one – I was able to ditch Akismet for a far better spam solution, which I will not name. The spam filter isn’t perfect, but it’s close. VERY little spam gets past it.
Amazing what one can do, when one HONESTLY tries to stop spam.
But HERE is the kicker.
What spam does get past, is always VERY interesting.
Sometimes, it’s not actually spam, but something even more insidious – a targeted attempt to get a registered commenter on the site.
Let’s talk about that.
Site Infiltration Through Fake Spam
There is a level of website comment spam that is just straightforward and obvious links to websites, companies, crazy people, and malware. Stuff like VIAGRA, ONLINE GAMBLING, and CHURCH OF BABYLON FIVE REVELATION. Let’s call that “level zero“.
We’re not talking about that. Almost any anti-spam software eliminates that stuff immediately, or lets just a wee bit of it through for approval or rejection on lighter settings, to let the administrator know that the software is “on the job”.
At levels of spam intelligence beyond that, comment spam is designed to look – barely – like a legitimate NEW poster, hoping to get on the site. Most caught spam that I see (level one) looks like that. It’s often obsequious, cringeworthy, and eye-rolling. The most likely purpose is simply to get a stupid link on a website, by getting a comment approved. The main targets are self-deluded blog owners who either want comments on their site, no matter how degrading, or “want to believe” the fawning praise or mild constructive criticism offered by the phony commenters.
Here is some “normal” level one spam.
Keep up the amazing work! Can’t wait to see what you have in store for us next.
This is really interesting, You’re a very skilled blogger. I’ve joined your feed and look forward to seeking more of your magnificent post. Also, I’ve shared your site in my social networks!
Every time I read one of your posts, I come away with something new and interesting to think about. Thanks for consistently putting out such great content!
The “skilled blogger” stuff just makes me laugh out loud.
OH, NOES, DON’T FLATTER ME SOES!!!
That’s the normal spam. There is typically a web link to some sketchy client business that goes with it. Real rubes may fall for it, but most will not. If a moderator approves it, some stupid link gets posted on the internet, some spammer gets paid, and that’s that.
Sometimes we get dozens of spam comments that are absolutely identical, except for the link. Doesn’t matter – our filter finds them all and stops them.
However, it’s the spam comments that are not really spam comments that are more interesting. These are comments that – if you look a bit more closely – seem with some certainty to be the product of a real human intelligence posting. Those are “level two” and above.
These comments may even seem to be responding to individual commenters on our site – but are worded carefully, so that they are still likely to be dismissed as spam. Targeted infiltration does not want to stir up new, active, and knowing defenses on the target site.
We periodically get these out of Pakistan, but they’re probably coming from somebody else, because false attribution and spoofing are so common. Some of the phony comments are pretty ingenious, because they try to spoof (pretend to be) actual commenters on our site, like scott467 or DePat. Clearly those attackers have STUDIED this site. Thankfully, there are other “tells” that can be used to dismiss such comments.
The people behind these attacks are especially active when people are fighting and arguing here, because that is when it’s more likely that the moderator (ME!) will make a rash decision to approve a post, for various reasons. The psychology behind some of their moves seems quite intelligent.
Then there is “level three” infiltration, which has to be solved by Wolf’s Extreme Vetting. You may remember that term, which was more of a thing when there were lots of people clamoring to get on the site. We’ve had actual FBI agents and known CIA assets try to get on the site. NOPE. Ain’t gonna happen.
But let’s drop back to level two.
AI-Assisted Fake Spam
Yesterday, we got something quite interesting. We had a piece of “uncaught spam” in the “level two” bin, which had the following characteristics:
probable origin – Eastern Ukraine – Nazi area not too far from the front lines
spam alibi – shilling for an online casino gambling site out of India
AI tactic – made its pitch by discussing the site tagline from Oppenheimer
Check out the spam pitch.
This is a great quote from Oppenheimer that highlights the importance of transparency and critical thinking. Freedom of inquiry and open criticism are indeed necessary to prevent errors and move towards truth. How can I help you further?[LINK TO SPAM SITE]
I hate to say this, but that sounds much more like a real person to me, than all this other crap I’m getting. It was certainly a WAY better grade of level two spam than we normally get, and it got right past our excellent spam filters. Based on my own reaction, it was also way more effective than most infiltration attempts, which tend to get more and more instant side-eye. This spam actually based its pitch on the site itself – not just the “skilled blogger” bullshit.
It actually had me going for a fraction of a second!
And – in my opinion – the analysis of the site goes beyond just the tagline.
Who does the commenter sound like?
Quite frankly, to me, that wording sounds a lot like either Wolf Moon, or TheseTruths.
Of course, AI has no trouble “sounding like” specific, actual people. It can read this entire site in seconds.
Now THAT is targeting! By somebody who QUICKLY knew how to sound to get the “moderator” to approve the post.
This is what a slick bullshitter does. He tries to appeal to the mark by sounding like either the mark or a trusted person. If you’ve ever known criminals, they come on very quickly in that way.
The last little bit, which is much more stupid (“How can I help you further?”) throws it back into the spam category, and IMO that tag-on sentence is very intentional, so that if I the recipient’s spidey senses are being triggered, those suspicions will be relieved by the thought that “it’s just spam.” The recipient will flush it, rather than doing what I’m doing now, which is to take note, to realize what is actually going on, and to dig in, looking at future risks.
But imagine how deceptive that comment could have been, if the authors had not added the “spam” dodge at the end!
The comment is designed for me to not read it too closely. They were hoping that I would either just approve it, or dismiss it as spam.
The thing is, to me, this comment is CLEARLY the result of AI.
It sounds VERY much like many of the AIs I’ve dealt with.
And if it were me programming it, I would have done exactly what I think they did, which is to have it read the site and construct a comment to try to get an account on the site, but not raise any awareness of the attack, so that they could “try again” if it failed.
My theory?
Somebody, somewhere, such as Langley, is helping the Ukrainians use AI in cyberwar, and giving them lists of people to target. Very likely the CIA and their “friends”. You know – the people who are assassinating, or attempting to assassinate, honest politicians like Abe, Fico, Bolsonaro, and others.
I suspect that the evil powers will milk this form of attack for a while, letting it get more and more sophisticated and pernicious, until the “problem” is pumped up by the media, and is ripe to be “solved”. Probably using woke AI that the BLOB controls.
SO – we get screwed – both as the problem builds – AND when they offer solutions at the expense of truth and freedom.
Yeah. Anyway, I now expect an increasing load of hard-to-handle AI comments to hit before the election. Along with calls by the commies to “do something” – that being something that harms freedom.
Get ready. This is your distant early warning, patriots. Trouble is coming, as winter approaches, and it stinks of government-abused AI.
Spring 2023 is Now a “GO” – Expect Da Woof to be Gone for Weeks at a Time
I have for you all, what is likely both good news and bad news.
The good news is that we are prepared for periods of my extended absence from this place.
The bad news is that there are no more “dry runs” – the time is here.
I waited to deliver this message until the first of March, to make sure that everything was a “go” for my spring plans, and as of now, it’s all a go.
I anticipated needing to take off from here for multiple reasons on multiple occasions, but all of that really depended on certain things happening, and they did, and there will not be any backing out of those things now, so….
HERE WE GO.
For the next four months, I will be checking in here FOR SURE every week or two – at most THREE WEEKS – and I will try to check in more often if I can. However, it is better for various reasons if I don’t check in under some circumstances. Thus, if I’m away for a while, and not checking in, it’s a good thing. It means things are going as expected. If I’m gone for a month, you are officially allowed to worry. Three weeks will be unlikely. The Nervous Nellies can start worrying at 3 weeks.
This is going to go on for March, April, May and June. Possibly July, but probably not. You’re just not going to see much of me for much of the time.
Because of the way notifications work, and the way important things can get buried under newer notifications, the easiest way to contact me (and me alone) is to do a PRIVATE MESSAGE TO WOLF (using underscores instead of spaces) on one of MY posts, such as the Monday Open.
Even Mona Lisa had to get through Mondays.
Contacting me is explained in more depth on the Contact Page.
If you want Deplorable Patriot, Bakocarl, SteveInCO, or another author to ALSO see your message (say it’s some kind of emergency, particularly on THEIR thread), then do a PMTW reply on one of THEIR threads. That private message will be seen by BOTH OF US, but not by other authors.
I ask authors to leave any moderated messages (including PMTW) up, and don’t delete them. I’ll deal with them the next time I’m back on the site.
In Case of Disaster
There is a possibility that the site will go down completely – particularly during troubled times like we are currently in. Dementia Joe and KlauSS SSchwab are not making things easy for this site. I can’t go into all the details, but we’ve already had to deal with their crap at several junctures, in part due to “global” concerns, and there could easily be new junctures.
Just add mushroom clouds.
In the event of disaster, there are multiple options.
You should note, however, that most of these options are on WORDPRESS DOT COM, and are dependent on that site being both UP and allowing our discussion. If wordpress-dot-com is brought down, for any reason foreign or domestic, then ALL of these options except GAB go down with it.
So if you’re looking for another denizen from here, look in all of these places.
For continuity of this site, the backup site is most likely to find new daily threads.
When I next return to the site, I’ll do whatever fixes are needed. Until then, you are allowed to enjoy your vacation elsewhere!
Suggestions (Not Orders) During My Absence
So what can you all do to make things easier?
Be civil to each other, and even better, KIND
Be especially civil in REPLYING to each other
Avoid picking sides in personal disputes
Yet never refraining from speaking the truth
Take a breather on another site if things get hot
Send me a “bat signal” if things are getting out of hand
Yet try to solve things socially – try to “work things out”
Remember that this site is for sharing information
Nobody is required to be “balanced” – YOU provide balance – with a civil tongue
Bad information is subject to correction, which is encouraged
Be careful in discussing violence, as we have always stated
Yet don’t shy away from discussing the need for crimes to be punished, and for good people to stop tolerating criminality in government, and in government-protected criminal groups, organizations, and classes of people.
BE FEARLESS IN TRUTH.
Other than that, I wish you GODSPEED, Vaya con Dios, and GOD BLESS.
I will see you the next time!
W
All images except Monday Lisa and the Drew family crest composed by Gabby, the Gab image AI located at https://gab.com/ai
To get a blue check on Gab, one needs to merely prove that one is, in fact, the same Gab user, by publishing that fact (Gab identity) under the other “verified” identity.
This is the information I provided to Gab – my WordPress identity.
Here is that bio information in plain text:
Currently @wolfmoon1776 on WordPress.com sites and theqtree.com Formerly @WOLFM00N on Twitter, and still awaiting reinstatement of my account. Currently @WOLFM00N on Gab (YAY, GAB!), Gettr, Parler, Keybase, and others. Still @wolf_moon on Disqus. Still waiting for an account on Truth Social.
But hey – now that I’m a BIG SHOT, I’ll still remember where I came from. *ROLLS EYES*
Just got this in my notifications. I *KNEW* this was coming.
SPONSORED POSTS
WordPress.com has started testing Native Sponsored Posts. This is an extension of our advertising program and will have the same controls and restrictions as our standard ad placements.You may see these Sponsored Posts running on your sites as we expand testing. They may be promoting WordPress.com content, marketing initiatives, or brands.
Longer term, we hope to offer Sponsored Posts to our users as a way to help drive traffic and promote content discovery. For any questions or issues, see our Native Sponsored Posts FAQ.
Whatever they’re up to, it’s not for our good. Please keep your eyes on it.
The most likely sites to be affected are the old WQTH, The U Tree, or our new “backup” Q Tree.
However, even this site might be affected, if the fine print of JetPack usage involves this form of editorial takeover.
Like I said – keep your eyes out for it, and let me know if you see it.
The ACTUAL forum is ready for people to begin USING IT.
AND I’M READY.
RULES are minimal, other than basic civility as per HERE, in all forums but ONE.
THE EXPLAINER.
There are THREE types of forums.
Main Forums
Q&A Forums
Test Forums
The number of forums will GROW AS NEEDED in each of the 3 types.
Main Group Forums
The MAIN group is where most posting will be.
Right now, there are FOUR forums in the main group:
General Non-Political
General Political
Article Discussion
The U Tree Air B&B
There is a sticky welcome message as a TOPIC in each of these.
General Non-Political
This is the forum to start any topic which does NOT fall into “ranty stuff” – which would be contentious points of religion, culture, and politics.
None of that stuff here, please.
Bring all the nicey-nice stuff here. Also the sads, the personal, and the poignant. GOOD STUFF. Religiously motivating – NOT religiously argumentative.
Do you have a non-political forum or subforum idea? Let me know. Or just try it as a TOPIC or series of topics first. Experiment!
But keep this place NICE and FRIENDLY.
Abortion, euthanasia, desecration, news, libtard insanity and ChiCom mendacity – all of THAT belongs on the next forum.
General Political
This is where to start topics on the FIGHTS in politics, culture, and religion – where most of our normal discussion goes. This is the WAR ROOM. There may be some war here, but it will be CIVIL. So to speak. If it gets out of hand, WE’VE GOT OPTIONS.
Article Discussion
This is where AUTHORS can re-direct commenting on their articles, or where discussion about one or more articles ON THE MAIN SITE can be held.
I will demonstrate this with the commenting for this very article. There is a LINK at the end that leads to the discussion.
The U Tree Air B&B
This is a substitute for MOST of the discussion on the U Tree. Advantage – it’s OURS and not a property of WokePressDotCom. Disadvantage – if you can’t get on the main site, you can’t get on this one, either. So continue to use The Real U Tree to get back in here, when you’re locked out.
Rules will be like The U Tree.
Civility? Shirley, you jest!
Q & A Group Forums
This is where we will put any forums which need to use the special “reddit style” / “tech style” format.
Right now, there are only two forums – regular and test. Our 2 prior test threads are in the TEST forum. People can use that to TEST ideas for this forum group, too.
As we gain experience and people have ideas about something the want to try here, we can add forums. I suspect this won’t get a lot of use, but I could be wrong.
Test Group Forums
This is where I stuck all the old test threads from the different formats EXCEPT Q&A, which don’t really translate to the THREADED format used in both the MAIN GROUP and the TEST GROUP.
The Simplified and Extended tests are now here, in Threaded format. They won’t make a lot of sense that way, unless you keep that conversion in mind. Most of our testing was in the Threaded format, like here, so it all makes sense.
Feel free to TEST USE OF THE SITE HERE. However, try not to encourage discussion here. We want most of the discussion to be on the main board. This is a place to test stuff, then bring it back to the main discussion board.
But if you mess up here, no biggee!
This place is like a quarry where you can shoot guns, blow things up, and try JACKASS stuff, to see if it works.
I could call these the “Hold My Beer, I’m going to try the EXPLODING BACON VIDEO SPOILER” forums.
Test it here – if it works – use it on the main forums. Actually, I don’t really care if you do stuff on the main forums, either, but some people need extra reassurances, and I REALLY REALLY don’t care if the test forums get messed up.
That’s it. Go for it.
Discussion and comments are at the link below. This is a demo. I will close “normal” comments on the article itself.
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)
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.
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)