Rabett Run

Friday, February 15, 2008

Advice

Eli is considering moving the burrow to WordPress or TypePad. Any suggestions as to which or whether to stay put?

21 comments:

Anonymous said...: I don't know about TypePad, but I made the switch from Blogger to WordPress last September ... way better. The migration was pretty smooth too ... the only problems I have now are some self-referencing links that take people back to the old blog, but that's not too big a deal.; 16/2/08 12:39 AM
Marion Delgado said...: All I know is, if you move the blog to Epsom, and you claim you are encountering Richard Courtney, you are a villain and a despicable cad, and there must be satisfaction.; 16/2/08 1:16 AM
Anonymous said...: not sure about typepad , but if you move to wordpress, you will have total control over comments (being able to monitor and filter IP addresses)

And people will no longer be able to post "anonymously" (Nothing is ever strictly anonymous on the web, at any rate)

but you probably already know that.

Should make John Mashey happy.; 16/2/08 9:42 AM
David B. Benson said...: Roger Pielke, Jr., has the Promethius site . It appears to use Typepad. I have troubles commenting to it and it appears that others do as well.; 16/2/08 1:28 PM
Timothy Chase said...: I kind of like Tamino's Wordpress -- although I would prefer to have the comments searchable in addition to the main text, and it doesn't seem to do that. Search means a lot to me, as I like to be able to track down and reference where something has been said before.

I don't like popup comments. Popups per se is something I would prefer to avoid, and I prefer to have the comments available on the same page as the post itself. Switching? Don't know enough about it, to what extent it tends to result in a loss of audience, etc.

*

Incidentally, one thing I miss, whether I am on Real Climate, Tamino's Open Mind or what have you, is the ability to narrow my search to a particular comment author on a particular subject. For example, there is a Michael S. on DebunkCreation who knows a great deal, or there are certain "skeptics" (either with respect to evolution or global warming) who will tend to repeat themselves (a certain Laurie A. from Australia comes to mind in the creationist camp, but you also see it with the skeptics at Real Climate, etc.). When possible, I like to link to their previous posts if I can find them, as well as to the response they received.

But I have yet to find good search tools in the forums on global warming. Likewise, I would like to be able to narrow my search to inline comments -- when I remember that something relevant was written weeks or months before inline.

One thing that might be useful would be if I could sign up to a blog to have the articles and comments delivered to my email box. With Gmail I can handle that much mail, no problem. Wouldn't take care of the inlines, though. And actually I prefer the search which is available with Yahoo Groups. Particularly since I can then link to the actual "posts" --what would correspond to posts and comments on a blog.

Hyperlinks and the ability to hyperlink to comments help -- whether in the same thread or in earlier threads.

They make material referenceable so that one doesn't have to repeat oneself or can quickly summarize what someone said then link to it in discussions, and they can also help in debates, particularly with those who depend upon others losing track of what has been said before.

*

One other point: I like preview. It gives one the chance to examine what one has written in a new format, as it will appear -- so that one is more likely to pick up on missing words and the like. Or so that the commenter can test the html used for markup. You won't have that with WordPress, apparently.; 16/2/08 2:12 PM
Gareth said...: I use Wordpress for Hot Topic, and like it enough to have moved my other blog over to the system.

Most of things Tim C wants can be done by a judicious use of plug-ins. And I like the availability of large numbers of themes free-of-charge.; 16/2/08 3:39 PM
Gareth said...: And you can have editable comments (which amounts to the same thing as preview). I use a plug-in called WP AJAX Edit Comments, which gives a commenter up to 15 minutes to edit a comment after posting.

If you choose your theme carefully, you can also have an RSS feed for comments.; 16/2/08 3:44 PM
Anonymous said...: Wordpress is pretty nice.
You can type in latex code and it makes pictures of the equations on the fly!

Also their contract terms seem to be less evil than google's, not that I know much about that kind of stuff...; 16/2/08 4:49 PM
Anonymous said...: Watching Pielke Sr. samack you down was highly enjoyable.; 16/2/08 8:46 PM
EliRabett said...: You might notice that Eli is ignoring him. When he opens his blog to comments, we might consider discussing the matter with him; 16/2/08 9:55 PM
Anonymous said...: My climate change blog is on wordpress and I find it very easy to work through...posting, comments, edits, templates, etc is all easy and looks good.; 17/2/08 8:04 PM
Anna Haynes said...: Wordpress.com, or wordpress someplace else? I only have experience with wordpress.com.

Blogger lets you post to your blog just by sending an email; last I checked, Wordpress.com didn't.

> "One thing that might be useful would be if I could sign up to a blog to have the articles and comments delivered to my email box."

Blogger allows the blogger to Make It So that anytime a new blog post is published, it gets emailed to a particular email address (which could be to a mailing list...) - I don't know about wordpress.

Last I checked, Wordpress.com was very sleazy in its handling of Categories, in order to game Google - if you clicked on the Category, you got taken, not to all posts of that Category for that blog, but all posts of that Category for all of Wordpress.com - which isn't what you want at all.
Not cool.
(and for all I know, not still happening; but it's something to check.); 17/2/08 9:23 PM
Anna Haynes said...: Also, last I checked, free wordpress.com doesn't let you edit your Template or its css - you get a bunch to pick from, that're customizable in limited (and varying - all templates don't allow all features) fashion, but if you want to change the css, you have to pay, and i don't know if you can make any other editing changes, period.; 17/2/08 9:26 PM
Kit Stolz said...: As I understand it, Wordpress is the heavy-duty version of Typepad, and I've yet to encounter anyone who disliked it. Comments at Pielke, Jr.'s sites are problematic but I haven't experienced that issue at other Typepad sites and I'm not sure he's with Typepad, in any case.

Not a very exciting comment, but you asked. Not sure why you would want to move, unless you want a new look.; 18/2/08 3:08 AM
EliRabett said...: Hi,

There are things that Eli wants to do that are impossible, difficult and/or left handed in blogger, including listing recent comments, posting only stubbs, RSS AND ATOM feeds, etc. Another driver is to get better images. Blogger fuzzies up a lot of jpg images. Part of this is laziness (let sleeping bunnies lie) part, not wanting to get under the hood.; 18/2/08 9:06 AM
Anonymous said...: GO Wordpress, Eli !
I just did and feel much relieved.
YOu can import your former blogposts from BLogger in a finger snap, using the "Import" option. It is quite bedazzling.
The only limitation is that for all the uber fancy things that one might be tempted to use Wordpress for, there can be a steep price (such as having your own CSS, modifying designs, using HTML code in sidebars, etc.. But you can do everything you are now doing on blogger and much more, for free.; 18/2/08 2:03 PM
Hank Roberts said...: > Wordpress.com was very sleazy in
> its handling of Categories, in
> order to game Google - if you
> clicked on the Category, you got
> taken, not to all posts of that
> Category for that blog, but all
> posts of that Category for all of
> Wordpress.com

This still happens. Try searching to find _any_ older thread you recall at Tamino's, and you get dragged into the WP amusement park and assaulted by clowns, er, you get shown everything anyone using Wordpress ever tagged with the relevant term.

And yes, they manage to confuse Google too, near as I can tell, so you can't get outside the box and then search inside the box.

It's a killer misfeature, I think.

But then, I spend a lot of time refinding things I recall seeing, or finding things I expect ought to be indexed somewhere. If all you want to do is surf the front side of the wave and watch the ads float by (sigh) ...; 23/2/08 1:17 PM
Hank Roberts said...: Er, not to say any of the other web based tools are better. You sure you don't want to just use a nice, manageable, searchable, threadable newsgroup format?

I thought not. Nobody built a graphics-capable Usenet News platform, as far as I know. Too bad.; 23/2/08 1:19 PM
Anonymous said...: I guess you might not want to move burrow now. :-)

Blockquote facility in Comments here would be handy, and numbered/bulleted lists too. However, one can live without them, especially as Blogger only seems to accept the five tags.

The improvements are more than satisfactory, methinks.

Cymraeg llygoden; 25/2/08 5:16 AM
mmghosh said...: You could look at Drupal.

http://drupal.org/; 25/2/08 6:26 AM
Anonymous said...: I note the Recent Comments message times are all the same (and take some time to update). Is this a coding or Blogger limitation issue?

If it is a Blogger limitation issue, then anything is better than nothing on this score, IMHO.; 25/2/08 6:59 AM