The lack of much posting today is because I was pulling my hair out over some behind-the-scenes tweaking. Two things drove me crazy for much of the day: implementing a way for you to edit comments for a short while after you post them, and implementing a way to highlight the comments of subscribers. But either I don’t know what the hell I’m doing or there are bugs in the plugins I was trying to use — probably some of both — and I ran up against a wall with both of them. I’ve got requests out for assistance from people who might know how to help me, and hopefully that’ll pan out and I can finish up those tweaks.
But in case any of you understand this crap, I’m trying to get Arvind Satyanarayan’s Comment Email Filter 1.11 and Mark Jaquith’s Tempus Fugit (which isn’t actually a plugin but a PHP script) working on Movable Type 3.36. If that means anything to you, gimme a shout.
While I wait on that, I actually did manage to implement a ratings system for both my posts and everyone’s comments. You can vote only once for each post and each comment (though it may look like you can click away voting on my posts, only your first vote actually registers, and that one genuine vote won’t show up till the page rebuilds).
At the moment, you’ll just be able to see the vote counts, but soon, you’ll be able to hide those comments that are rated below a certain threshold — it’s a sort of collaborative community filtering that, on very long comment threads, should make finding the meaty stuff easier. And eventually I may implement a “popular posts” or “popular comments” listing somewhere prominent.
For now, have fun with the new features, and let me know if you run into any problems.
If you wanted to become a subscriber of the site for only $1 per month as a token of appreciation for my efforts (if you haven’t already subscribed), I’d be delighted.
but still no edit button?
Is this only for new threads, or are old posts available for rating as well?
@Jurgan, I can see it now
Review: Scott Pilgrim vs. the World SCORE: -9,427
I guess you didn’t actually *read* the post then, doa?
Down vote for you. :->
Old posts and comments as well as new.
I’m also gradually turning on comments for old content that predates the blog format and was migrated in.
Maybe this exists and I haven’t found it yet, but it would be great if there were a way to look up your TV reviews in the same way as your film reviews. There’s the Doctor Who guide, of course, but how does one track down your episode-by-episode reviews of BSG, Caprica, Life of Mars etc? The search function isn’t hugely helpful because of the way google presents the results (the full title doesn’t show, so you don’t know which series/episode it is, and can’t find out without clicking in and out until you get what you need).
Ooo, this could get nasty. Or be a right proper way to filter out the occassional loon.
Let’s test out this etid function.
Wait. You didn’t get that far yet. I am sputid.
Damn you, lack of edit button!
I build that “all reviews” page by hand, and the *Doctor Who* guide, too. It makes sense to put the work in on those, because there’s so much content there. I don’t know that it makes a lot of sense to build a static page for, say, my *Battlestar Galactica* blogging, since there’s so few entries there. But I’ll give it some thought and see if there’s something I can do.
In the meantime, you can browse using the category archives. Something that was currently airing when I wrote about it would be under “tv buzz,” and stuff I wrote about on DVD would be under “tv on dvd” (under “reviews”). You can also use tags to further refine your search. Tags appear at the end of a post (if the post is tagged, of course; this one isn’t), above comments: click on “Doctor Who,” for instance, and you’ll get a listing of every post tagged “Doctor Who.”
Hope that helps…
Thanks MaryAnn – I had wanted to read your BSG and Firefly reviews, and needed a way of tracking them down from the beginning. I’ll try the tags.
Don’t be disappointed, but there’s very little here on either series.
Well, I’m off to the Scott Pilgrim thread to rate everyone down a notch.
Is there a real point to the voting system?
*blushes* I mean aside from the points you listed above.
Most sites with voting systems – from my observations – just turn into vindictive little popularity contests (e.g. Digg).
I hope this won’t turn into a vindictive popularity contest. I trust that the readers of this site — who have so far maintained a high level of conversation… shockingly high, for the Web — will keep it civil.
Many readers here do put a lot of thought and intelligence into their comments. I’d like to think that they’ll appreciate some brownie points. :->
Mmm, I do love the ability to vote “meh” on anything…
hee! I need to be able to vote “meh” on more aspects of my life… B)
MaryAnn did you change how your comments look on purpose? If not… they’re no longer fully highlighted, just your name.
If so… I’ll give it some time to grow on me before I complain about it :)
I did change that. When I can get Comment Email Filter working, the same will be done for donors/subscribers, except their band will be yellow and will have a little notation such as “site supporter” after their names.