“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
This thread will be used for testing only. Site members please refrain from commenting here, as I work with plugin developers on the YouTube embedding problem and the manual video embedding problem. If and when I need your assistance to help provide examples, I will ask for it.
Thank you!
Wolf
PS, Developers – please note that I will need to approve your first comments as “guests” – I can also register you on the site on an as-needed basis. Don’t worry if your first post falls into moderation – I will approve it, and you should be OK to post comments after that.
I will provide some embedding examples in both posts and comments.
YouTube by URL (attempted embed – unconverted to link)
YouTube by URL (attempted embed – converted to link)
Let me begin by thanking everybody who helped test out the forum, including a couple of “new” posters. I want to emphasize that the forum is going to be designed to bring more people to the discussion, which is basically designed to be like Twitter or Gab – talk about whatever.
I want to THANK Tonawanda for pushing this aspect IMMEDIATELY, because I want the forum to be a real forum. Patriots talking about WHATEVER. We will likely create subfora which may ask for either HIGHER levels of civility, or allow for LOWER levels of civility – basically being “The U Tree“, only not under the control of WordPressDotCom. We will leave The U Tree where it is, as a kind of lifeboat in case this whole site goes down, but otherwise, I want to move the “get a room” stuff back to this site – just in a back room.
Likewise, thank you to Bfly for BRINGING HOME THE BACON.
Our friend rayzorback also gets it. ANYTHING.
NOW – let’s get down to BUSINESS.
I want to start making this sucker more like what it’s supposed to be – to get it OUT of beta test mode – very quickly.
We have different formats – the default is THREADED, which is much like on our blog, with the wpDiscuz commenting system.
Threaded has INDENTATION of REPLIES to REPLIES.
Threaded ALSO seems to be the most popular of the formats:
Now that is SOMEWHAT not fair, because I put up a threaded forum first, and people gravitated to it. HOWEVER, I put up the other three formats fairly quickly, and they DID draw replies, but NOT new topics (or “posts” in some parlance), as the THREADED format did.
Based on my observations, the big hit was conservative cultural discussion using the threaded format.
The threaded format simply drew MORE participation.
The next most popular was PROBABLY the Simplified layout. This layout depends heavily on QUOTING. It’s linear with embedded quotes that refer back to prior replies. This is an older but very common style of layout.
The Extended layout is pretty much the same as simplified, only LOOOONGER. It also depends on quoting.
Finally, there is the Q&A layout, which is a bit like Reddit, and a bit like technical “questions answered” forums.
This one is weird and confusing, yet has strange charms. It’s easier to show you how it works. The most important principles are as follows.
(1) The title asks a question, which is fleshed out in a top-level “reply” which can be commented upon.
(2) Responses to the title question are also top-level “replies”, which are called “Answers”, which have changeable titles, and can be upvoted or downvoted, affecting their display order.
(3) All top-level replies, both the fleshed-out question AND the “answers”, can draw COMMENTS, which are next-level replies, to which one CANNOT reply or “like”.
NOW – with that understanding in mind, observe FOUR disjoint snippets from a single Q&A session, which illustrate all these features and limitations.
1
2
3
4
Now, there seems to be some love for the Q&A format, despite its weird limitations. But there is also a lot of HATE.
We are almost led to the idea – well – can we have MULTIPLE layouts?
The answer is technically YES. However, there are RISKS in breaking up the forum too much. But let’s set those risks aside, and assume we are smart and don’t succumb to the risks – that we can avoid them. Let’s assume we “break things up smartly”. The next question is – HOW can we do this?
What is technically possible in terms of mixing styles?
There IS some “hybridization” possible, where we BLEND into a single style. It is complicated and probably won’t be done right away. This involves taking features from one style and grafting them into others. The software is designed to allow this, but it’s not simple, and it’s LIMITED. Small features, yes. Big ones – only if possible, and probably not even THAT.
So let’s set THAT aside. What is still possible in terms of multiple styles?
It turns out that EVERY FORUM AND SUB-FORUMS of that forum must have the same style. In other words, if I set up a forum, any forums “within it” or “below it” must be of the same style. Basically, anything in a hierarchy obeys the layout above it.
I can have MULTIPLE forums, but whatever layout is used in the top-level forum, carries down to ALL subforums.
Thus, if we want a “Q&A” forum like on technical sites, where answers “compete”, which can also be viewed as a reddit-style forum, where trendy consensus moves to the top, then that forum has to be DISTINCT from the main “threaded” or “simplified” forum, which is more likely to be the consensus forum layout. Likewise, if we want BOTH threaded and (simplified and/or extended) forums, then they ALL have to be separate, parallel, forums.
NOW your are ready to see what we have – FOUR parallel top-level TEST forums.
This will all get modified when I take the FORUM (as a whole) out of “beta test” into production. I may keep these old forums and their contents for historical purposes, or change them into new ones, but this is where it starts.
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.
How about Vimeo? They’re getting weird and insular, but I found this:
Note that BitChute is being deplatformed!
“BitChute needs your help! We have been deplatformed by service providers and we are in the process of moving providers. If you experience an issue this is likely the cause. Please consider helping at this critical time.“
wpDiscuz Embeds supports lots of content providers. Video, audio, photos, products, and more—embed the content your users crave.
Video Embed
Embed full videos anywhere. Let your users on your discussion area watch content from dozens of video providers. Video providers include: Youtube, Vimeo, Dailymotion, Rutube, Vevo, Vesti, Metacafe, Liveleak, Funnyordie, Dotsub, Scribd, Citytv, Snotr, Wat, Novamov, Youku, Putlocker, Veoh, Zappinternet, Dalealplay, Zkouknito, Allocine, Break, Vzaar, 4shared, Movshare, Shiatv, etc…
Image Embed
A picture is worth a thousand words. Don’t just tell users what you are talking about; show them. Image providers include: Flickr, Instagram, GettyImages, Mobypicture, ymlyFrog, etc…
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)
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)
