Commenters

Look out. Admin post ahead.

It’s been a week since we made some big changes to the appearance of 6000 miles…
I still like it. It’s a good start.

One technical thing which changed along with the front end of the blog was the system for commenting. It’s moved over onto Disqus:

a worldwide blog comment hosting service for web sites and online communities that uses a networked platform

‘Disqus…’ = ‘Discuss…’ Because it’s a comments section. Geddit?
I’m ashamed to say that it took me a while. I was thinking about the Olympic frisbee thing.

Disqus does require you to log in to use it, but it’s a once off thing (assuming that you click the “remember me” box when you log in) and I hope it doesn’t put too many people off. Also, if you’ve already commented since the change, you may have noticed that your comment was held for moderation. I get to them as quickly as I can (time zone differences notwithstanding), and you should see your opinion on the page within minutes in most cases. Regular commenters (you know who you are) have been and/or will be added as “Trusted Users”, and won’t have to endure the ignominy of joining the back of the moderation queue.

I hope this answers questions and puts minds at rest.

Import of comments started

The change has begun… You probably can’t see anything yet, but behind the scenes, a new commenting system is being installed and your old, much loved comments are being imported into that new commenting system so that your valuable views are never lost.

More on that in a future post (i.e. I have to to work out how to use it before I can tell you).

The import to the new commenting system currently stands at post #2005 of an impressive 3597. And it appears to be stuck.
Meanwhile, the new commenting system has sent me 4 emails telling me that it has completed the import.
Really now? Honestly, I believe more of what I heard during last night’s debate.

I’m now working on trying to make the font on the site look pretty. It’s harder than it looks.
And it looked quite hard.

Depending on how things go, the switch over might be later today, or it may be tomorrow.

Either way, despite the best efforts of mice and men (but to be far, mainly men), it’s probably still reasonable to expect a few minor teething problems. We’ll be trying to identify and squash them as soon as we can.