This is where you voice your opinion on features and such. What makes the transition from the old place? What can be left behind? Do we start all over with BKAC? Jeff A asked if the birthday thing had run its course (I see what he’s saying, but although I almost never commented on it, I nearly always read it).
Anyway, go nuts.
I think we need to decide what the new blog will be called. I'm thinking "The New World's Greatest Online Magazine". It's a little less intrusive than what we have now. Not that we shouldn't give credit to SBG for all he's done, but we don't necessarily have to do it in the middle of the title.
I definitely want to tackle the question of the blog's title. I have no problem with yours but I'm all ears for more suggestions.
I'd also talked about calling it The WGOM but making it an orphan acronym, or making it stand for something else.
If it stays The WGOM I think I'd prefer it becoming an orphan acronym to trying to figure out a new title based on the same letters. But, I'm open to a new title, too. It complicates the URL a bit, but what the heck.
Wisconsin Guild of Midwives!
Where Gentlepersons Occasionally Mingle.
Who Gets Our Money?
Where Great Opining Matters.
Ah, the power of Google.
CountlessMultiple people associate a random acronym with a guild of midwives.I totally agree with you. I'm way in favor of an orphan acronym.
Also, I love the term "orphan acronym." I use it anytime I can, which is to say that this is like the second day I've ever gotten to use it.
I think I finally figured out why I like just WGOM - it reminds me of a radio call sign, just like in the picture on the old site.
"'What's Going On, Minnesota?' 95.3 FM, playing you the best of Marvin Gaye from Milaca to Aitkin and for all your fishin' on Mille Lacs."
WGOM is currently an unused call signal. It was used for 860AM in Marion, Indiana for various music formats (GOM = Giant of Music). Now WMRI, an ESPN sports affiliate.
heh, i think i know what our next project is...
A sports station. W-MRI. Heh.
MaRIon, IN
That may be the thinking, but it's still funny.
Reminds me of a podcast I halfway follow called NSFW. The running joke is to come up with new titles to fit it.
Not so funny widgets.
World's Greater-est Online Magazine.
Yeah, we need to determine a new title.
I felt the birthday thing had run its course. I read them daily for one year and had little desire to read them again. Plus, if Jeff is looking to scale back, that's an easy way in my opinion.
Doing BKAC over again...I don't think so. I feel like I'd be repeating myself again. However, I'd totally dig a shorter version of "Get to Know 'Em" Like a quick link on the sidebar so newcomers could get a brief profile on everyone.
Otherwise, keep all of the book/movie reviews. Music videos I can do without, though I wouldn't mind keeping my November stab at being DJ. If there's enough interest, I don't mind keeping them either.
Get to Know 'Em sounds fun. Once Andrew's here, we'll see what he thinks, as that's always been his arena.
Book/music/movie days are definitely not going anywhere.
I'd like to continue doing videos if we decide that is something we'd like. I own like 3,000 albums and it makes me feel like I didn't waste all of that money.
I was also looking forward to my September stint as Guest DJ, so I wouldn't mind keeping the videos.
I will put a small plug in for the birthdays. I still enjoy them.
But I would certainly understand if Jeff A had felt they'd run their course. It would give him more time for his minor league reporting!!!111one111!!!
Yeah, I really like all of Jeff's content, and I always like looking over the birthday lists. If he's looking to decrease his load, though, I'd rather cut the birthdays than the minor league reporting (which is awesome, I think) or even the weekly ex-Twins reports.
i enjoyed the b-day section not only for the fun little twins players' and others' bios, but jeff's memory ran deep and reminded us when we owed a citizen or their loved ones some salutations.
yea, those were really nice touches.
If Chaps is looking to scale back his workload, I would suppose the Citizen b-days could be included in the Get to Know 'Em section.
Thanks for the affirmation, guys. I haven't decided what I'm going to do yet. I don't think there's much chance I'll go away completely, but I may decided to cut back some. For now, I'll keep doing what I've been doing until future notice.
Why not have one of our pages at the top be "Calendar", and post the birthday posts as links there? That way you would only need to touch up the existing posts for anything new, and throw a comment in the Co'C if there are Citizen birthdays to be aware of? I don't want to see the birthday's go away, but I would like to see them less of a burden for you.
One thing I was meaning to chart was a short bio of all citizens (gleaned from whatever they felt like sharing). Like I'm an actuary in the MSP area, married to EAR and have three kids: CER (girl age 7.5), HPR (boy age 5), and AJR (girl age 1). Spookymilk is a writer/actor living in Yakima, married to Milkmaid with two daughters, Sour Cream and ???. etc. I just never got around to writing anything down.
Skim. Well done otherwise, though, stalkerface.
Yeah, as I sit here hidden in the dark across the street from your house, I see you deciding whether or not to unfriend me on FB. Don't do it, I'm benign! Also, I love what you've done with the place!
And I don't know their ages (for sure).
If you're really doing this thing, Skim is 6 and Sour Cream is 3.
I also was crazy about the comment plaques that were shortly-lived around four years ago. For those who don't know or remember, a plaque was created for, say, Stick's 1,000th comment on the site, no matter the context.
Obviously, we how many more posts we have now, perhaps 1,000 is too low a number. And I don't remember who had creative control over that project in the first place. But I looked forward to every plaque, even though I didn't have enough comments yet to get one myself.
As far as I remember, Andrew was facilitating the comment plaques.
Yeah, I had the comment plaques back in the day. I still have the originals backed up. Stick and I always meant to get back to that, but it never happened.
brianS was north of 30,000 LTEs, and I was pretty close to that. So, that was going to be a lot of plaques.
1K, 5K, 10K, 15K, 20K, 25K, 30K?
is MagUidhir gaelic for [the artist formerly known as A____w]??? 🙂
If I'm not mistaken, I was around 15K. About half of those with an image. And 10% of those were redheads.
I'll miss her.
In order to conform to the New World Order regarding misuse of intellectual property, we need a Christina Hendricks stalker w/camera STAT!
socal, where are you, and do you own a camera??? 🙂
I'm here, I've sponsored a week (only $5? w00t! but I woulda done more than one if I'd been prompted for a multiple of Mr. Lincoln's).
and when I say I've sponsored a week, does that mean I get to inflict Shat on everyone??!!!
But seriously. I'm happy to help any way I can.
Whoa whoa, we have limits here.
Yeah, weren't we going to have options to buy more than one week at a time? It's better financially for us and allows people who want to give more an opportunity to do it without having to go through checkout multiple times.
Did Joe not set it up to allow more than $5 at a time? I thought he was going to go 5, 10, 20 at the very least.
Not yet. Right now you can only buy one week at a time and the quantity is fixed at one.
Hmm. I bought a month.
actually, yeah, i was wondering how you did that. the embed code i sent to sean was supposed to include a drop-down menu with different levels, but i don't seem to see that happening. also, did it bug you for a shipping address? i tried to set it as a "digital good" instead of a physical item.
No, I don't recall being asked for a shipping address. As for the drop-down menu, I see week, two week, and month options.
I have nothing but the $5 option here. Weird.
me too.
anyway, it might be a day or two before you're actually charged, by the way. working out
tothe kinks.I'll try to keep more than $20 in my account.
I think if you make donating easy enough, you'll have lurkers paying as well.
I could try to bring back my "The Nation Has Problems" feature. It was a fun, but short lived feature. I've thought about trying to bring it back for a while now, but have been too busy. If I did it again, I might got for monthly, rather than weekly. That gives me more time to come up with good problems and will also help keep me from being too burnt out.
Second Mondays. You're on for May 9th.
Oh. My.
That is three days after graduation and I'm also travelling to parts unknown on that day. I'll try to do it in advance and have it ready to go. Don't know if I'll be around to chat much about it though.
Any time is fine. Could also pick something in the middle of a week if you want.
Let me think about it. Mondays are probably good because there's often not much else going on and it's the beginning of the week, so it gives people something fun to think about over the course of the week. It just happens that this particular Monday isn't great.
No reason why you can't debut in June rather than May, GH.
Hooray!! I loved "The Nation Has Problems". Love that it's coming back.
I'm scheming up problems as we speak!!!
If it's possible to increase the number of nested replies, that would be cool. I think that's an easy fix in Atahualpa.
It's actually a WP option. Right now I have it set to eight with a max of ten.
Edit: Just maxed it out. Might go in and make that max 11...
This one goes to 11. Gotta love it.
+18 inches of Stonehenge
1. I like WGOM as an orphan acronym
2. Please keep music/movie/book days
3. Keep videos, I've already got my week lined up for July
4. Contests are fun
5. I like the polls
6. I like the Get to Know Em idea
7. Glossary of commonly used terms is a must
Are there any old-timers with minds like steel traps who want to take on the WGOM Lexicon? Once it's put together, it can be a page at the top of the site that we can change as needed.
yes to the glossary
Rifding Hokme = the Swedish equivalent of General Nick Fury
I'm not sure about porting the SBG Library. It was in disrepair after the WGOM server migration a while back left behind all the jpg's. It does make a nice umbrella for the monthly book reviews, though.
I was thinking instead of having a periodic feature of Twins' baseball cards instead. And the NCIS posts were fun, although I wasn't actively looking for them.
Rhu_Ru, I've always felt a little guilty about not consulting with you about integrating the Book Day posts into your Library structure. If you are amenable to folding the Book Days in, I'd be in favor.
I love the NCIS stuff, but I promise to try to tone it down and let someone else get an idea in edgewise.
dido on the love for the NCIS bits, although mebbe not in the middle of the work day too often!!!
I really like the NCIS stuff, though maybe they would work as their own posts sometimes? (Rather than in the CoC.) I love how the CoC is kind of an incubator for new posts. After something gets posted in the CoC regularly enough and gets enough comments, it winds up developing into a new feature. I believe this happened with the Friday music, the birthdays, the ex-Twins, and the EPL report. (Maybe some I am forgetting?)
No, I think your memory is spot-on. I second ubes' motion.
Yes, I think so as well. It'll keep the CoC from getting too congested, as it did with the old black and white photo spooky and I tackled last week.
Twins trivia started in the offseason in the CoC as well.
Can we commission Bootsy and/or meat for some new art work?
and when can I buy a teeshirt with the old art work on it, damnit?
We've already talked about getting one or both of them for the site's main art, but they're two of the only Citizens I haven't seen online for most of the day.
Are you implying they have lives outside of the WGOM?
Ha! I'm around, but time is short and duties long.
Spooky, if you like I can put together a place-holder header "image" (the WGOM name in a snappy font) until more artistic Citizens can help us out.
It might be a little more personal to us than these calming but generic flowers, sure.
I'll put together a few options and send you a PDF.
My feelings won't be hurt if you go in a different direction, but I had this one lying around.
Erm, this one.
Awesome. I added it to the rotation with a couple of things CH sent me. (Refresh until that's the one that shows up)
Because of the dimensions, it's not displayed in full on the header. If that's a problem, I can take it down.
ooooooo!!!!
Good to see your boots, Bootsy.
6, you are the man.
I'd like to keep the WGOM Achievements List around, since I'd won like a million things.
DK: I like the achievements as well, and I wonder if they'd fit nicely as postscripts to our possible "Get to Know 'Em" sidebar features.
Things I'd like to add this summer/fall/eventually:
1. Classic Albums reviews.A mix between brianS' First Mondays and AMR's music Fridays.
Things I'd like to see others add:
1. Banjo, ct, bS or anyone else with more food/drink content.
2. More experienced parents in the nation telling ct, jobu, can of corn, and myself that it is going to be okay.
Hey Buffalo, right now my daughter is at her Senior Prom and graduates from High School in 6 weeks. It's gonna be o.k.
See, that's a column!
1. bS has expressed interest in continuing Barley Pops and Hop Hits. Hooray! Don't forget NBB for food, either. Hopefully he sees the migration.
2. free covered it, but concerning the more immediate future, I have a 6- and a 3-year-old. It's going to be okay. Really. Better than okay.
I'd love to see zooomx (or someone else, if he wants to pass the torch) come back with some wine reviews too!
Oooh. I'd be interested in the occasional wine review (or for that matter, the occasional beer review). It would be a little silly to live here in wine country, constantly sample wine, and never do a review...
I am more than happy to share a
pintpost with anyone who'd like to contribute to the beer reviews. Feel free.brianS, I think I could scratch together a few wine reviews. I miss doing them. I also would love to see your beer reviews carry on!
glad you made it over to the new digs, zooomx!
Thanks brianS. BTW... if I were to pen a few review, I might need author status. That would also help me go back and fix the countless type-os in my comments. Lastly, if said author status is given, where is the best place to learn the tricks of the "creating a post" trade. One hurdle for me at the old site was my lack of knowledge in this area. It took me a long time to set up my features. I am really computer challenged.
Album reviews would be awesome.
I agree. I have a bunch I'd love to share.
What I should have said was I'd be happy to chip in a few posts, too, if Buffalo ever needed a break.
This might sound whack, but I'd like to see some columns baked a little more than half-way. We have some bright folks with legitimate analysis that isn't being said elsewhere (I think back to stuff referenced in WSJ and other periodicals) that might be a draw to people; if it could be presented in a way that could be linked elsewhere (Aaron's Friday posts, for instance) it could be our gift to the outside community. And we could dress up in suits and drink cocktails.
Two-thirds baked?
after the cocktails...
I agree with Rhu_Ru, if there's one criticism I would level at the old site recently, it's the lack of some analysis posts. I realize we were spoiled with ubelmann's posts for a long time, but I kind of feel like once we lost that, we never really picked up where that left off.
I've always wanted to contribute more analytical content other than the (very) occasional inclusions I make in my recaps, but I've kind of 1) never had the time to plan out what I wanted to write about, and 2) honestly, felt a little nervous about trying to fill ubes' shoes.
I feel ya. ubes' analytical posts were a large part of the reason I knew this place was going to be my home.
Maybe a tag-team project with someone might be less intimidating?
We should also make sure that SBG gets the SBG handle...or at least that nobody else can have it.
I guess I don't know why anyone would try to steal the SBG handle. Am I misreading your comment?
I just wanted to make sure no noobs would come over and steal his handle just to mess with us. He's here now, so it's moot.
And a way to make him Boss Emeritus.
Nah, I'm just one of the fellas, now.
I can't even edit my LTEs to take out that second comma anymore.
If you're going to keep that avatar, I demand more fowl language.
Seconded! It's only right.
Love the "behave yourself" thingy. Howevah:
Uh, umm, not sure about that wording. 😉
Ha. Yeah, let me get right on that. My first half-baked moment here!!1 (Well, maybe)
here's my feedback in no real order:
-agreed that movie/books/music post should all continue unhindered. also, the DJs should keep spinning (everyone's got their week planned, and well, i'm kind of one of them now).
-if possible, i'd like the recent LTE list to mirror the old site. it was a real nice little current snapshot of what was going on, i thought.
-padre, you should be given free rein to do as little or as much as you want.
-agreed towards expansion of columns. i love the idea of many monthly columns such as the nation has problems, beer/food reviews and tutorials, classic albums, and more experienced folk than i to talk me off a cliff once the little bastard gets here.
-obviously first things first, but i'd like to get a mobile version functioning. early tests on my android were not good.
that's off the top of my head for now.
also, i think if you go on the dashboard of SBG's site, there's some listings of what plugins he was using if it will help the transition any.
I think I sort of insinuated as much to him, but there's no part of what the Padre does that I would actually want to go away. He's free to post as much or as little of it as possible.
We're looking at SBG's dashboard and seeing what plugins we need. (That's a Sean thing)
You could just ask and I'll tell you.
Spooky & Sean, what size is the banner at the top of the page? I've got an idea for a banner graphic to replace the weeds.
1300x160. 1300 is a bit wide, so something narrower might be better.
Looks like I was late to the party. I like the improvements to the banner, so I'll leave well enough alone.
I'm not opposed to adding more to the rotation (I'd love one from meat, if he's interested). Unless such things are a resource hog here, I like the idea of several Citizens contributing to the banner.
i like the idea of rotating banners, especially if they're citizen contributions.
I'm down, just really freaking busy. I'll get back to y'all after mid may...
I'd like to post some analysis-oriented stuff on a semi-regular basis, but I'm currently trying to finish grad school (etd mid-June), work my job, will be moving in the June/July time frame, and I'm getting married in September, so I don't see myself having time to work on posts until October.
I’m getting married in September
have we heard of this before? if not, then many congratulations, and a minimum of run while you cans. i'm pretty sure that i speak for everyone in saying we would welcome as many of your contributions as possible, whenever possible.
Thanks, I've kept it under wraps 'til now. There never seemed to be the right moment before to mention it.
Well, it's a fine way to open the door to our new digs.
Congratulations, ubes.
Congrats!
Any moment is the right moment to mention something like that!
Congratulations - I trust your spouse will indulge baseball fandom as well as all the other Citizen's spouses. Heck, if you're nearly through grad school and working on a wedding, you already know how to juggle stuff like that.
felicitations, ubeldude.
Congrats, ubes! Now I think a "The Nation Has A Life" column is needed 😉
Hey, congrats on everything (finishing school and getting married). I agree with HJ, whenever you want to post, whatever you want to post, we'll be all ears...uh, eyes.
Thanks, though I'm not out of the woods on grad school yet. Glad I didn't take my eye off the WGOM in my final push to the finish line, though, it would have been even worse to learn of the death of the WGOM a couple months after the fact.
I don't talk about this much online, but I'm in the last push on my final semester of law school right now (and I think everybody knows what comes this summer after that), so I think I can empathize a little. I'm glad we're getting the word out to everyone that we are.
let me guess, you are going to be a litigator? 😉
Congrats to both DK and Ubes.
...and I just became a doctor! (of math)
Milestones all around WGOM! Congrats to all!
I'm sure I've asked before, but what was your focus? I spent one semester at the U of MN in the Math Grad program before switching to actuarial math.
I didn't yet have a focus, although I probably would have looked seriously at combinatorics. I spent some time and effort as an undergrad looking into Ramsey Therory variations.
I'm in graph theory (particularly extremal graph theory). I spent some time in the Minnesota math department too, as I was finishing up my CS degree there. Not the best place for combinatorics IMO, since most of what they call combinatorics, I would call algebra. Still, a degree from UMN is worth more than the one I'm getting from Iowa State. I've been happy with how well Iowa State has prepared me though. I've been able to teach my own courses and get some papers published.
Congratulations, ubelmann. Best wishes to you.
Ubes, congratulations on the nuptials!
DK, I'm right there with you on the final 2 weeks of law school & looming B*r exam. Good luck and wish me the same (if you have the chance to come up for air).
As for suggestions, I would like to see the books/music/movie reviews and Friday Music Day continue as well as the ball game logs & recaps (obviously?). I like the videos and the random contests too. Other than that, I think one of the highlights of stickandballguy was the ability to add something new whenever the fancy struck...if at all possible, keep that up as well.
Finally, if we can get Stick to post the occasional Saturday morning "Musings", I would love to hear what he has to say. I know, I know, time off is needed and well deserved, but I hope we can get a thoughtful short here and there.
If you are up for it, I will post an occasional Musings column.
Wow, gentlemen, I am impressed. You got the site up in one day. It feels a little strange that it's not mine anymore, but in a way this is better. It's like I sold a home that I'd owned all my lives and I can come back and live in it. This may be the WGOM's finest hour. Last night, I went to bed feeling bad because in my mind the old place was not just my place, but when I decided to stop, it was just my place. These new digs are our place or your place and the fact that you put it all together so fast makes me happy.
If you are up for it, I will post an occasional Musings column.
I sure hope you do.
dido.
Musings of a retired blogger. I like it.
Alternate title: Out of the Basement.
Ooh, that has a little "Notes from the Ditch" to it.
Agreed. As bummed as I was to see that the WGOM would be no more when I woke up yesterday, I was inspired to see that it meant a lot, not just to me, but to many other people as well. The speed at which this place got running was more impressive.
Piling on here, but Stick, I'd love some occasional Musings as well.
Your musings columns always struck the right chord for me, and I was always happy to see them.
Yeah, congrats to you too, and good luck (I'm sure neither of us are going to need it!).
Thanks for the congrats, everyone, and congrats to GH and DK on their pending degrees. I'm looking forward to life after school.
And I'm looking forward to 6-8 more years of it. Sigh.
I'm sure that after I'm out for a few years, I'll be thinking about how much fun it was back when I was in school.
Having been out of grad school for a few years, I can say that I really don't miss it. I'm very satisfied with my experience, and glad I went, but equally glad that I don't have to go back.
That said, I've always told people, if you're going to go to grad school, make sure that you love what you're going to study because otherwise it will be hell. From what I can tell, CH, you really love what you're doing, so that should make it something rewarding and worthwhile.
This is the end of my 8th year of grad school. 3 years in CS and 5 in math. I have no regrets.
After I finished off my paltry 5 years of college (all undergrad... I did get a BME and a BA in physics, though), I can honestly say I haven't missed it at all.
Another suggestion, put the LTE count on the Cup of Coffee post. That way, when I log in, I know how many posts have been added since the last time.
In the "Behave Yourself", I'd like to see a comment regarding reserving the use of strong language to situations like unfortunate HR allowed or unsuccessful bunt attempts.
Though I'll occasionally be the one to break that rule, I agree. On it.
You have to donate more money to the site for every 5th curse!
Well, f-
Swear jar!
If that's the case and if he can ever afford to hang around as much as he did last fall, then the "G" will have to stand for Geoff, for his continuing sponsorship.
I don't have that much money.
My primary feedback is to keep the WP features and design as minimal as possible. This should help with server load on busy days and generally make things cheaper to run.
agreed
I liked all the tinkering that SBG did, looking to keep the site up-to-date, but I also agree that we should try to keep the server load low. Maybe after we get a certain number of plug-ins installed, a new plug-in means having to ditcb an older plug-in? I am loving the quick load times here at the org.
This is a good idea. I believe this site has a little more under it's hood than the old one, but you'd have to ask the head wrencher exactly how much she's got.
Quite a bit. I'm watching the load right now and it's below 0.1*. It will probably max out the memory first, but we're only at 31% used right now. I have some things to do still that will make it even faster at the expense of more memory, but it's a worthwhile trade-off since memory usage fluctuates much less.
For reference, it can go up to 4, which is the number of CPUs it has. Once it starts getting above 1 or 2 will be when we start feeling it.
More so just adding things one at a time and seeing how they perform under real load (e.g. game log). If things slow down, we'll have a pretty good idea what caused it.
Just chiming in here...
1. I loved the book reviews, movie reviews, music, etc. (Many of my history/bio reads over the years came from freealonzo and Shane over at Greet Machine).
2. I hope to contribute some more content over here. Hopefully, I can find the time to do some more historical stuff (which I always enjoyed researching).
3. I second Beau's love of the comment awards. I was amused by Andrew's beautiful plaques that contained typos and made no sense out of context.
4. A Get to Know 'Em feature would be great.
5. I think I'm one of the people using profanity a little too often, so I'll definitely comply with whatever guidelines are in place.
How about the first chapter from that book about the 69 Twins?
I'll regurgitate that in some form someday! Maybe this summer I can spit it out here in a semi-coherent manner.
I look forward to it. I know that putting out a whole chapter might not be the best idea but any snippets would be greatly appreciated.
I wasn't meaning to be prudish with the comment about language, but it does make it a bit more outsider-friendly.
It's been several years since the Get to Know 'Em posts for some of us -- might be nice for an update.
Just got done reading all the above suggestions. Here's my 2 cents:
- I'd be more than happy to continue with the soccer posts
- I'm liking the "Behave Yourself" page
- I'd pick back up plaques in a sort of SBG.com retrospective if we all wanted
- Can we have more frequent guest DJs? I really liked my week and wish I could do it again soon.
Also:
- I'm down for facilitating a scaled down BKAC - "Get To Know 'Em" sounds good since it fits with the Twins slogan from a few years ago. Maybe some sort of template so it looks like a baseball card? Use our commenting avatar and have our "stats"
- Being an old fart*, I'm sure I can really help flesh out the Lexicon
*At least in SBG terms
I think a good way to integrate more guest djay time is to bring back the request hot line. Reach out to myself or jobu at anytime and we will gladly plug some tunes in. Cool?
i was thinking about that after looking back on some of the old vid posts, actually.
Cool, request line works just as well.
Speaking of guest DJs, I finished up my week over at the old site, put something up last night.
I think, given the way this week ended, I'll hold off for now on throwing my hat in the ring for the next round.
You gave us a "classy" last week, Mak, err, DG.
I actually have a last-hurrah vid posting scheduled for tomorrow over there, assuming it is still flying. A parting Shat, so to speak (but with sooo much more).
Sean put up a draft for the Lexicon under the Pages tab in the Dashboard, so you can build on it anytime you like.
I'm not seeing it when I go looking. My Dashboard is pretty empty.
Pirate: You can now; I just wanted to hold off until people asked for the ability to work on pages so we didn't have a bunch of people publishing over one another and accidentally killing what was built.
So, work on it, absolutely, but know that Beau is also doing so as we speak.
actually, it worked great yesterday, so why don't you guys do an etherpad? that would be a great way for multiple people to work on it without too many problems.
http://ietherpad.com/
Ether Pad is based on the Google Wave code, right? Since we have the shiny VPS, it'd be pretty neat if there was a way to host our own version of Wave for working on stuff.
It's actually a bit the other way. Google bought out the original EtherPad to work on Wave. I don't remember when, but the source code to EtherPad was released due to its popularity and a bunch of clones popped up.
Setting up a custom Wave though, hmmm. It's still in heavy beta but it's definitely a possibility when it settles down some.
Definitely far back burner for the moment, but I know a good number of the Guys do enjoy using Wave.
The bonus is might be able to integrate into WP's user database and not have to worry about making an account.
Sounds good, I can definitely wait until later.
More thoughts as I use the site:
- The text editing buttons at the top of the Write an LTE (if that's what we'll still call them) box would be a welcome addition. I remember HTML, but highlighting text and clicking a button keeps formatting errors at a minimum (like when all the following LTEs are in italics because someone didn't close their tags).
- I'm sure the new site will have an official color scheme at some point, but for now could hyperlinks be made a color easier to at a glance? Even if they were just changed to a more vibrant color the actual text could be regular weight instead of bold.
The text editing buttons were a plugin that I customized. I can email that file to who, sean?
Yeah, sean's the man behind the curtain when it comes to how the site works.
Yep. Email that and a list of all the plugins you were using.
Got the email. I'll work on adding the plugins after the game ends.
check your email again.
Sure, any color in particular? Can pick red to mimic the previous site.
In favor.
Red or blue are fine for the moment, I would think. I used what looks to be the CMYK equivalent of #991100 and #081873 in the place-holder header, with the proviso that it's a place holder and nobody's stuck with it.
#990000
#F4F4EC
Those were the old colors.
with all these new column ideas popping up, maybe we should make some sort of calendar. nothing that we have to update daily, but just a grid with 1st week, 2nd week, etc. of the month, and the days, and a listing of what is when. keep a general post in the site info or something so we can keep everything straight, and people could keep an eye on things and anticipate when so and so column is coming up.
Good call. A schedule of the regular posts will help keep anyone from being stepped on.
I was actually going to attempt to do that with the "To Do" plugin that I set up on the dashboard at the old site. But yeah, no sense in clobbering the site with content on one day instead of spacing it out.
After the game perhaps I can cull the ideas from this page and put together a flexible calendar page at the top.
Sean, I made a banner and put it out on tinypics if you want to add it to the rotation.
http://oi55.tinypic.com/23hwruw.jpg
That's one of the few things I know how to do as far as site design, so I'm on it.
You'll probably need to set the left & right opacity to 0.
You know, rotating banners could be cool. Or how about theme banners for All-Star week, post season, or other topical times?
I dug around the setting for WGOM in Facebook, hoping to link new posts here with Facebook, but didn't see a way to do it. I think it may only work for a person's Facebook profile, not a group's.
As a reminder, if you're on Facebook, drop a line to any of us or request to be added, and we'll see that it happens (this means you, punman). Everyone there is Admin, so anyone can do the deed. And that also means Behave Yourself.
With great power...
You should get rid of the wasted space in the theme header. 1/3 of the screen is taken up by the header and I don't think we really need the goofy flower and title there. The title could just as well float above the header image.
Can someone with power explain why I can't upload images into a post
Also, I can't add a new post category.
You should be able to do the latter now. Maybe the former, too, but if not then I'm not sure how to fix that.
correct on the latter, still FIAL on the former.
Try again. Will probably have lots of various permissions issues for a little while.
Muchos bester, thanks. New post (eventually) for Tuesday AM...
In my defense, I'm considering 4 runs for this team an offensive breakout. Also, 4-2 is a legal football score (not rugby tho).
Dammit, wrong post. What is going on with me today?
I'm gonna guess drugs.
Or perhaps lack thereof--I'm in the process of giving up caffeine.
Ok, but I do have a serious suggestion. One thing that would be cool here would be a private messaging system, though I'm sure this is outside of the realm of what WordPress can do. It would be helpful when I do my Nation Has Problems segment, since people can contact me directly rather than posting a comment. I'm happy to have people email me of course, but this might be easier.
I think we basically tried this with SBG Mail, but it never felt particularly effective (it might have been plenty effective for more plugged in Citizens than me, however). Not saying that you're entirely off the mark, GH, just that how best to do what you're describing is going to take a little thinking through.
teh Facebook could handle almost all of that kind of communication.
except for those of us who disdain and eschew facebook.....
cc to sean: my game log is ready to go for tomorrow, I think, but the preview looks a bit off. It's showing the links as plain text of the html code rather than as proper links. can you take a look, and let me know if I'm doing something wrong???
bS: I think I got it. Preview it on your end, though, if you like.
It looks like maybe you wrote the post in Visual mode and then when you switched to html, your code was affected.
Ok, I see those two tabs now. What is the point of "visual mode"??
thanks, spooks.
Visual mode sucks.
Agreed. I have pages on my blog that I can not edit in visual mode, lest all my formatting get corrupted.
I like visual mode for tables, otherwise sometimes it's hard to keep track of all the tr's and td's and such.
Thanks for adding the login box instead of having to go to the Dashboard then back out. That was going to be my first suggestion this morning.
You need to add a link to gravatar so that newcomers know how to get an avatar.
I think something should be done about the green flower thingy on the tab. I much preferred the script W from the old site, but really anything would do (TC logo, maybe?)
I wouldn't know how to change that (I'm learning a lot from Sean, but I was practically starting dead), but I did get the gravatar thing up. Good call, Stick.
That's called a favicon That shouldn't be too hard at all to adjust once we have the right image.
Trivial to do, once we have a favicon. I'm open to taking submissions and then voting on one.
Whatever image is decided upon, generating a favicon is as easy as visiting Genfavicon. Just make sure you grab the .ico file and not the .jpg or whatever else it offers.
Now that I know what it's called, I'm somewhat sure I know how to change it. FileZilla's confusing me, though. Makes it look like we're using twenty favicons or something.
I think that's just the list of available favicons.
It is. They can be deleted without any harm to the build. Or at least I haven't noticed any.
This was my question. Thanks.
or, if you prefer, we could do a poultry-themed rob original
I'd like a scaled version of just the "W" from the circle logo (that CH did?). I really like that banner, and I think the "W" would work well as the favicon.
CH sent me that, yeah.
If anyone wants to see what might have been, I can send them the full PDF.
If the banner thing isn't a big drain on our memory, I might want one or two others, though I'd planned to keep it to one or two banners per person.
hungry joe, for instance, sent me about eight or ten last night and I'm just waiting on whether I can post the images here or not.
i think it was 5, but who's counting?
I think you picked the best one of the batch I sent you. There are a couple others that I like, but whether there's more than one in the rotation isn't a big deal to me either way.
Thanks for setting this up. It really looks great. I wasn't able to log in through Firefox over the weekend. When I tried, the captcha image would not display. Could've been just me or my machine or operator error. But I thought the new powers that be might want to know that.
I was able to register with Safari without issue this morning.
I also had that issue with Chrome. Today when I tried, it just didn't have a captcha image, which works too.
Yep. I noticed both of you got caught, so I investigated and the CAPTCHA wasn't displaying anything. I removed it for now but will re-enable it once I know it's working. I'm thinking it will be a simple math problem from now on.
Cool beans. Thanks, sean.
An aesthetics thing: I would suggest ditching the extra <ul> or <li> tag that surrounds the Recent comments code. The two bars on the left hand side is too much.
Just logging in to the new site for the first time - I was gone all weekend. Glad to see SBG posting here - and a quick thanks to all the folks behind getting the new site up and running so fast while retaining the WGOM feel...
Glad to see you made it! Which regulars (and semi-regulars) are we missing here? Who hasn't followed the breadcrumbs?
Somebody better go back and leave Oreo crumbs so WordUpThome finds his way here.
Has New Britain Bo stopped by yet?
or rowsdower?
rowsdower has registered. I'll get together a list of who's here so we can figure out who's not.
The Registry:
Algonad, AMR, Banjo, Beau, ben, bhiggum, bjhess, brianS, Can of Corn, CarterHayes, cheaptoy, Chico Esquela, cowdisciple, Daneekas Ghost, davidwatts, Dicta, DK, E-6, Eric B.B., eschapp, FirstTimeLongTime, freealonzo, frightwig, GreekHouse, hungry joe, Jeff A, kg2005, klawitter, kortronovitch, MagUidhir, meat, Moss, New Guy, nibbish, punmanbowler, Rhubarb_Runner, Rob, rowsdower, SBG, sean, socaltwinsfan, spookymilk, strategery, The Dread Pirate, tobynotjason, Twayn, ubelmann, uncledoj, UncleWalt, whiffers, WordUpThome, Zack
An incomplete list of people I notice missing:
NBB
Geoff
Scot
zoomx
Women
Aaron Gleeman
StatFreak101
StatFreak102
Also:
Rifding Hokme
kalarson
Under the "Our Features" page, perhaps each item in the list could be linked to a category list of the postings? Obviously it can't be done until posts actually exist for a feature, but when that time comes...
We need a page to list the WGOM Achievements! Pretty please? Also, I can throw a link on there for the latest contest, also AMR, help on the spreadsheet?
I have all the WGOM Achievements copied...I had thought of putting them in the "Get to Know 'Em" things in the sidebar, but after I get home from picking up Skim here I'll make a page.
Basically, Stick closed shop on the other place because he couldn't bear the shame of falling behind me in the NBA contest on the last day of the season.
As the clear winner of the NBA contest, I am also in favor of the WGOM achievements making an appearance.
I finally won something, so yeah, get that up pronto.
It's up top now.
Maybe this is a good time to ask how people keep track of new LTEs. Other sites have mechanisms for marking comments as read, but here I usually just hit the refresh button and hope for the best. Do people subscribe to the comments RSS feed? If that's the best option, can someone suggest a good reader?
I used to use an RSS feeder for LTEs. Now, though, I just check the recent LTEs list.
I suppose now is as good a time as any to overcome my OCD.
Yeah, that's what I've always done. Easy for me to say, since I never leave.
Same here. I just read the right hand column, and click into any post where the comments are either too long for the sidebar or I can't tell to whom they are in response. I'm actually pretty good at figuring out where the newest LTE nests without actually reading the post.
Yep. I imagine quite a few people use that method.
do we need an even longer list on the right, then?
I went with 25 because that's what was at the old site and it felt like enough, but I'm all ears.
I wouldn't mind it if the text were a bit smaller. The less scrolling needed the better.
If you included showing the category(s) with the post, a person could select/search by category...
If I understand right, you subscribe to the feed then sort by title. So while you lose context of the comment, you can tell which ones are new? Or is there a way to identify which LTEs are new while maintaining the nesting?
Uh, no. I was making a request to the powers that be, not answering your question.
You used to be able to get a list of posts by category on the old WGOM; here, you can only currently do it in the dashboard.