In the last two weeks, WUWT changed the cloud service it was hosted on, and made significant changes to the way comments are handled using the new WpDiscuz commenting system, while allowed editing, comment up/down voting and many other features.
I also made a big change to the Tips and Notes page, so that it doesn’t get bogged down and need to be purged periodically..
The process of change has not been without hiccups. But, I believe they are mostly solved now.
Just a couple of caveats before the discussion.
- I can’t move the posiion of the main comment form, currently at the top of comments. The software was designed that way and people asking on the WpDiscuz support forum have also made the same request.
I can’t current make the text in nested comments the same size as the main comments. Perhaps in the future with some CSS tweaking it can be done. I’m not a CSS expert.See update below.
Comments suggestions, what ifs and polite complaints are welcome.
UPDATE: Based on feedback in this thread, I’ve disabled the “read more” comment button. Comments will load in full now.
UPDATE 2: In case you don’t know, inline image embedding works, but ONLY if you use https, not http in the URL.
UPDATE3: The differing text size between top level and threaded comments has been fixed. My thanks to Eric Worrall
UPDATE4: I added a plugin that provides a comments search next to the very top comment box. Helpful on large threads.
6/11 10AM – I had to remove it, as it was being exploited and slowed the entire system down.
UPDATE5: 04/11/18 I added another plugin, this one designed to handle YouTube and image embedding, as well as allow for direct uploads of images, audio, and video files in comments using the new icons that now appear in the comment box.
UPDATE6 BY WILLIS: I’m overjoyed to announce that Anthony has fixed the problem with the formatting on all of the previous posts. They display correctly now, so I’m able to recommend WUWT once again without reservation. Please ignore my comment below, the issue has totally gone away. My thanks to Anthony for his usual dedication to detail and his unwavering support of the blog. Well done, my friend.
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“I can’t move the posiion of the main comment form”
I think it has to be at the top, because at the bottom thee is only “Load more comments”. And if you have to load them all before adding, that would be a pain.
my old eyes have issues reading replies to comments and cannot find a way to add avatar/profile img that the plugin instructions say is possible. this however may be an admin setting, don’t know.
for all its quirks I think I still prefer disqus due to SSO and history availability.
Pluses:
1. Ability to edit comments. (I’d like it even better if it had a countdown timer, if the timer reset with each edit, if editing weren’t disabled for comments that go into moderation or trigger the spam filter, and if the editor wouldn’t make my nbsp characters invisible.)
2. The worst of the initial problems are fixed. Links are no longer invisible. Pictures can be posted (though with https URLs only).
3. The yellow-background not-yet-read thing. I’m not sure, but I think I kinda like it.
Minuses:
1. The comment permalink URLs in old articles are all broken.
For example, this was the URL of a comment which I made last summer about the benefits of elevated CO2 for CAM plants (like pineapple):
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2017/08/17/study-global-warming-will-cut-crop-yields-assuming-no-adaption/#comment-2584113
That link no longer works.
The equivalent “wordpress dot com” URL still works:
https://wattsupwiththat.wordpress.com/2017/08/17/study-global-warming-will-cut-crop-yields-assuming-no-adaption/#comment-2584113
But for the imported copy of the article, in the new system, the comment has a changed URL, which breaks all the old links to it. Here’s the new URL:
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2017/08/study-global-warming-will-cut-crop-yields-assuming-no-adaption/#comment-2132389
2. In old / imported articles, the embedded images don’t show up if they used http instead of https URLs.
3. “Read more” and “Load more comments” (probably helpful for mobile device users, but I use a big, fat desktop computer). They break “ctrl-F” searches.
4. YouTube, Vimeo & Twitter links don’t produce embedded videos/tweets.
5. “oldest first” default (which the”Load more comments” feature makes especially annoying, for heavily-commented articles).
6. There’s something strange about the web pages — the Chrome spinning “busy” indicator keeps spinning on them.
7. Comments that go to the spam bucket just disappear without a trace, and no warning to the user. (But the old system had this problem, too.)
8. Error reporting is baaaad.
9. Doesn’t update the URL in the address bar, when you post a comment.
10. The one you mentioned: the tiny font for indented replies.
Things to get used to:
1. The 🔗 button to get the comment’s permalink (instead of the date/time linking to the permalink).
2. Gotta use https to get images to show up.
3. Blockquote just indents, no other format change.
4. Comment entry at the top.
5. As others have noted, the horizontal line is in the wrong place. It should be between comments, not between the commenter’s name and his comment. That is, it should be above his name, not below it.
Meh:
1. +/-
The list of “minuses” is shrinking…
2. I wrote “articles” when I meant “comments.”
3. is fixed, thank you!
4. is partially fixed — some folks have managed to get youtube vids to embed (though sometimes it doesn’t work — dunno why)
5. is okay, now that “load more comments” is thankfully gone.
6. Maybe fixed — the spinning/busy thing seems to not be happening, now.
10. Tiny font for indented replies is fixed (except for italics).
On the old site I could turn my phone sideways and the text was delicious and big and easy on my old worn out eyes. for a site like this font is everything. Other than that everything is awesome great job hard work I know
I love the new format.
Intuitive, permits editing, navigable, simpler direct reply functions.
Thank you for taking the trouble to make the change.
I don’t like the “read more…” truncation and link. It changes the formatting, I lose my reading point, and I’d prefer to see the whole comment at once all the time for all comments.
Ok, I got enough complaints about read-more to get rid of it. Done.
Amen.
Thank you, Anthony! So much better!
Anthony ==> Overall a vast improvement. I used CA Assistant with its clickable HTML tags to ease the use of HTML in comments — but doesn’t work in the new version (not your fault — I may be able to re-write the code).
The Important Thing is whether it is better for you overall or not. Let us know.
I’ve never used CA Assistant. I’ve used Ric Werme’s Guide on the sidebar. https://werme.bizland.com/werme/wuwt/index.html
(Maybe that’s why on another post Willis had trouble with “pre”-“/pre” formatting?)
Those two are sort of unrelated.
IIRC, CA Assistant was written for ClimateAudit. That it worked at all here is minor miracle.
I’ve used ItsAllText, that may be going away. Bummer.
A few other notes in general:
My Guide to WUWT isn’t updating, it will take a while to get it going with the Pressable site. I’m also fighting MySQL over some stuff. I’ll likely rebuild my data base from scratch, as the postID numbers have changed, and I used them as my index.
The Test page here (see top Nav bar) is in dreadful shape – mea culpa. I haven’t had time to keep it cleaned up in months. I’ll make some.
Ric,
Thanks for what you do.
Your guide has helped people better communicate what they have to say.
Gunga ==> I’ll have to investigate the rules for HTML in comments on the new platform….really liked CA Assist.
The reply to a comment type font can be adjusted if someone who is familiar with the WordPress configuration can get into the CSS sheet(s). the problem, as with all content management systems, is that several CSS sheets will be loaded before the page is finally rendered. I’m not familiar with WordPress.
I like most of what I see but I’m not sure about the (Up)(Like)(+)/(Down)(Dislike)(-) feature. I don’t know what it means to others or what it contributes. For example I recently posted a damaged electronic organ on a neighbourhood social media page free to an interested hobbyist. No replies to it, but two persons “liked” it! What on earth did that mean?
The capability to edit comments is a blessing to those of us with “thick” fingers, dyslexia, and awful spelling/grammar correctors.
[On the other hand, the mods do point out that an awefilled grammar detector is very awesome and awe-inspiring. .mod]
(the like button helps me to see if the peops think that my jokes are funny… ☺)
(or not… ☹️)
I gave you a +1 on your first and a -1 on your second.
(You seemed to be asking for it.) 😎
PS Very, very minor (or is it “miner”) thing.
(https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JJ83r886Kyg/YChWz_oow6g)
How can I do the 8 – ) as text with it being glasses instead of sunglasses?
Testing video that didn’t show above.
https://youtu.be/JJ83r886Kyg
Last try.
OK. Not last try.
[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JJ83r886Kyg&w=854&h=480%5D
Odd. Today on a different PC at another location all my “test” worked but this one.
On my home PC all of them still don’t work as embedded.
That is, I see a link that works when I click on it, but on the other PC I saw a still of the video to click on.
I’m guessing it must be on my end.
(If it is on my end, I hope all of you that saw it correctly (repeatedly) like “Galaxy Quest”8- )
8<) You forgot the nose under the eyeglasses.
But my nose isn’t that big. 8- )
Now, Gunga, that’s funny! (i gave you +1)…
The world of internet commenting is often perverse.
For instance, there are many, many videos on Youtube with low viewer numbers and even fewer comments and votes. But amongst those with almost zero comments and votes, I notice that they tend to have either 0 down votes, or 2 down votes. Notwithstanding that the topics are often ones where it is difficult to imagine any ‘average’ commenter from ten random viewers taking the trouble to down-vote the video, it frequently turns out to be 2 down-votes. Not 1 or 3. Often while the number of up-votes is trending up towards 100 (by which time you might reasonably expect to get at least some down-votes on any video) on a less-infrequently-viewed video, the down-votes, if any, still often seem stuck at 2. Not 1 or 3, or more. Whatever it reflects under these circumstances, I don’t believe it reflects a true sampling of the opinions of human viewers. It makes me suspect there are only two bots that have successfully ‘examined’ and successfully commented on the bulk of Youtube videos.
If these changes are better for Anth*ny and WUWT, then I support them (of course).
The Read-More feature is handy, but too often, there’s only a half-paragraph after it. Where it’s needed is in long diatribes. I don’t see a way to make it commenter-controlled; those people wouldn’t use it, most likely.
In a perfect world, nobody would need the “edit” button, cus they took the extra minute or two to read what they wrote.
It is after all a marathon, not a sprint.
Take it from someone that can barely put a sentence together.
i would find that even proofing before submitting a comment was not enough to make them completely error free. It’s only when you hit submit and then read it after posting that you notice that one or two mistakes that got by you. (the edit feature solves that problem)…
Right. A book on copy-editing advised readers that merely changing the font and/or size of text will make it easier to spot errors.
I am mostly an intermittent lurker here, so my take shouldn’t carry much weight.
But thanks to a recent period of, um, the absence of income, I’ve been on a much slower internet connection. And your site seems to load much faster now than it did before. Thanks!
(The text size issue isn’t a concern here, as my browser allows me to adjust text size as I see fit.)
I like it.
For me, a Solid WIN.
I was more than a bit skeptical at first, but the tweaking and tuning has made a huge difference.
A lot of people are having trouble getting embedded images and YouTube videos to display.
Maybe it is because we are not familiar with the details.
Maybe there are bugs in the embed code.
We will have to see how it all works out. Then action can be taken if needed.
My compliments to the chef.
(tony, i think you have to use https now)…
We have seen several examples of people using what seems correct https urls and still no joy. Anthony pointed that out right on day one so we started giving it a try. Looks like things need to shake out a bit.
Stay tuned.
Yes, https links work to embed images. Not for youtube videos, though.
The changes look good, BUT
The link on the email notice of an article title are broken, they left out the “dot” in “wattsupwiththat.com”
the “Read more of this post” is correct.
Seems okay to me. I just got the link for the new article, Pope Francis Asks Oil Companies to Deliver Cheap Reliable Clean Energy. The links all work fine.
I hate the voting of the comments. It is very unfriendly to people with unpopular opinions and works as a twisted reward system to echo-chamber type of short comments.
It also provides a measure of success for trolls, to see how many negative votes they can get.
[Please, don’t vote this comment] ☺
Anthony, I haven’t really taken time to dig into it, but it seems that comments that were initially in close proximity are getting spread out. As an example, in the last post by David Middleton on OA, he had initially responded to me and his comment was close below. It now is like a page lower down .
I like it a lot, except for one huge thing. In the old system, paragraphs had a space between them. Under the new system, every old post has lost that space. And since no one indents paragraphs any more, this has turned every old post into jammed up, hard-to-read junk. Here’s an example. Scroll down to the middle and you’ll see how ugly it is.
Although I hate to do it, I have stopped recommending posts on WUWT because they are so difficult to read.
HELP! This is a deal-breaker, it’s turned thousands of carefully-formatted posts into rubbish.
Other than that, I think the new format is superb.
w.
A fix would be for the new system to automatically indent non-indented paragraphs, even if they are separated from one another by blank lines. (Or only if they are not so separated.) This may not be a current option with this “skin,” but maybe its coders could be persuaded to add it.
A workaround for new links to old articles is to use the equivalent wattsupwiththat.wordpress.com link, like this:
https://wattsupwiththat.wordpress.com/2018/05/25/climatic-distortions-due-to-diminutive-denominators/
But the problem isn’t the formatting of paragraph breaks, it’s the fact that many (but not all!) of the paragraph breaks </p><p> in the old articles have been replaced with line breaks <br> in the new versions, by whatever miserable, buggy tool imported the old articles into the new system (presumably the same miserable, buggy tool which broke all the comment permalinks).
Here’s a snippet of the original article:
http://sealevel.info/climatic-distortions-due-to-diminutive-denominators_original_snippet.txt
Here’s the same snippet of the new, imported version:
http://sealevel.info/climatic-distortions-due-to-diminutive-denominators_new_snippet.txt
The right solution is to get a fix for the miserable, buggy tool, and then re-import the articles.
A quicker workaround, which would improve the formatting in most cases, is to style the <br; tag to add some extra vertical space, like this:
br {line-height:175%;}Here’s a tiny test page which demonstrates the effect of that workaround:
http://sealevel.info/test_br.html
“The right solution is to get a fix for the miserable, buggy tool, and then re-import the articles.”
Gosh Dave, you make it sound sooooo easy.
Migration of the thousands of articles (~18,900) took a week. WordPress.com handled the task, I was thankful they provided the assistance at all.
But I’ll send a note to their tech support.
Sigh. I wish editing weren’t disabled for comments that get kicked into moderation.
Dave, on editing, you want the moon, the outer planets and most of the Kuiper Belt on a regular basis. I can give you low Earth orbit to the moon.
A week ago I couldn’t even manage that.
My thanks to Anthony, who I had emailed about this matter prior to posting here. It seems my emails never arrived at his end … grrr. Go figure. He’s got a lot of folks who are trying to attack the system, trying to overload his emails, and the like. How he puts up with it I don’t know … in any case, he’s working on the problem, as he works on every problem, without complaint and without rest.
Anthony roolz!
w.
Justify is justified! Triple Crown Winner!!!
Great win, great horse but he still would have lost to Secretariat by 12 lengths.
Not that it’s related to the comment section changes but….Wattsupwith spellcheck and heliosphere??? Why is heliosphere flagged as an incorrect spelling by PCs? Does Microsoft/IBM prefer that the word heliosphere not exist? Izzit some kind of spellcheck conspiracy? I have to “add to dictionary” every new or different device I use. It’s becoming a routine set-up step. lol.
Being able to ‘+’ a comment is a good thing, I guess.
Being able to ‘-‘ a comment is a bad thing, I’m pretty sure.
Take YouTube for example, people vote thumbs up. I’m not sure how useful that is, but if it makes them feel good… And then there are always a few that vote thumbs down, and everybody else wonders what is wrong with those people, why did they do that?
If you want to have plus and minus, you should also keep track of how each user votes, how many plusses and minuses he/she/it gives. I’m sure there are positive people and negative people.
Here’s one. Trump leaves the G7 meeting early in order to skip the climate change part.
MAGA Liberals Unite! You have nothing to lose but the wrong side of history.
P.S.: Wow! Votes! Edits! Way to go, Terrible Tony!
REPLY testing. Testing 1-2-3.
Just testing the imbed or whatever it is called:
You got YouTube videos to work! How did you do that?
And how does it differ from what Leo did, which didn’t work?
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2018/06/open-thread-poll-discuss-the-recent-changes-to-wuwt/#comment-2374304
(Please post your youtube URL with extra blanks inserted.)
indeed
https://youtu.be/CbgqtvJOJus
You can’t use shortened video URLS
I like the “notify of new replies to this comment” bell-shaped button on the Reply form.
I’d like a “contact Moderators” button, so users could report double-posts or the really heinous or violence-advocating comments that sometimes slip through. In the past I’ve had to report these by email to Anthony after they were up for over a day. There are likely other reasons for alerting the moderators too, which I’ll think of 5 minutes after hitting Post Comment.
I’d like to see the Archives & Search Categories & Rick Werme’s Guide buttons moved up from way down to right under the Search box near the top. These would be much friendlier to visiting newbies and journalists, and forestall many ignorant comments by warmists who haven’t searched the site for threads on the topic they’re commenting on.
I don’t see the yellow background for new comments, which I think would be a wonderful feature. (I have the Mac mini’s 11.1 version of Safari.)
+++ Edit function!
+++ Disabled ‘Read More’ limits!
– Still haven’t been able to insert images or videos, even with https: ???
https://youtu.be/oPwrodxghrw
Hmmmm….. The 2nd attempt to embed the Get Smart video above worked. I had to use the Embed function in ‘Share’ below the video, copy the Embed Video iframe script, paste the iframe script into the WUWT comment field, post the comment which gave me this:
[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oPwrodxghrw&w=560&h=315%5D
I hit the Edit button, deleted the [youtube prefix, and hit Post Comment again, which gave me https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oPwrodxghrw&w=560&h=315%5D
When the video still did not display, I hit the Refresh Page icon on my browser and ‘viola’ the video finally displayed.
My embed above, all I did was paste the url from Youtube, as per usual.
Just like old times……..????
U.K.(us)
Do you see the video below…. or just the url?
https://youtu.be/oPwrodxghrw
Just the url.
I went to YouTube and copied the url.
Here is my paste of the url:
FWIW, J Mac, when I hit “post comment” it came up as an url, then I hit refresh and the video came up. (my video not yours)
Don’t know if it was some kinda delay or if the refresh worked…… aren’t f’n computers fun !!
u.k.(us),
Who said “Ya can’t teach old dogs new tricks!” never had to live through the birth of the computer age!
It’s been a long road from using the ‘steno pool’, to Wang word processors, to little Apple IIc cube computers with 5.5 inch floppy (truly ‘floppy’) drives. Then 286/386/486 chipped contraptions with ‘turbo’ boost, and the rudimentary start of the DARPA net that grew into the still expanding internet of today…. Whew! We were there, using it!
Learning Basic, Fortran, CNC, and pieces of other programming, Excel spreadsheets, CAD/Stress analyses programs, manufacturing planning, fixtures/tooling/detail/assembly inventory and queuing control, ‘what if’ analyses, design for manufacturing and assembly, defect trend analyses and process optimization/QC, ….. all kinds of stuff, and it never ends!
WUWT continues the trend as yet another learning resource. God Bless Anthony Watts and all of the great folks that post such interesting articles and enlightening comments here!
After all that, a pesky ‘insert image/video’ glitch is truly small potatoes!
Mac, the deeper we get into this internet thing, the more the amish make sense…
Just testing:
apparently the bbs software recognizes youtube as a youtube url but it doesn’t recognize youtu.be as a youtube vid url.
cant get it to work even with youtube.com
has anyone see the price of carrots lately.
(no, but i’ll ask bugs bunny the next time i see him)…