Hi guys — I just thought I’d give you a little update regarding tech problems as we’re finally closing in on some big changes thanks to some new tech help (hooray for Laura!). You should experience a much smoother, faster site — please let me know on this thread if you’re still noticing a wonky site. Some of the changes we made required us to get rid of some features because they were mucking up the database, including the edit comment feature and the report comment feature (which was used correctly approximately three times for the two years we had it running)! (We kept the “subscribe to comments” feature — I need to investigate why that one isn’t working.)
Two other notes regarding admin issues with the site:
- Video ads. I’ve given my termination notice to the company I was working with for below-the-fold ad space, so hopefully a lot of those autoplay video ads should stop soon — we’re still in the thirty day termination window at the moment, unfortunately; let me know if you continue to see them and I’ll do the best I can to stop them. (It is/was an incredibly long process with the company to stop the ads, which is part of why I terminated.) If you see/hear any audio ads ABOVE the fold (leaderboard, at the top of the sidebar, or that Garnier ad in the middle) please let me know asap — that is a different company and they’re much better about responding quickly. Please also let me know if you have mobile-only problems as well, such as redirects to the app store (grrr) — in particular if you could forward me the long URL that you’re redirected to, that would be amazing.
- Commenting problems. After we finish this project one of the next ones I’d like to work on is messaging regarding the comments; we may be able to find a way to tell you why your comment doesn’t post. If a comment doesn’t post immediately it could be because a) you’re new to the site (or you’re using a new computer) and you’ve gone to moderation, b) you’re using a word that sends you to moderation, c) your IP address has been placed in moderation for violating our commenting policy, d) your comment for some reason got stuck in our spam filter (in which case it’s unlikely to post ever because I almost never check spam unless you contact me), or e) it HAS posted and is just on page 2 of comments. There are also the annoying Wordpress problems with “duplicate comments” and “you’re posting too quickly,” which both hopefully are much less of a problem than they were a year or two ago — please let me know if those two things are still cropping up all the time.
