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DOES TURLEY BLOG NEED A NIP AND TUCK?

250px-Ijn_surgeonIt comes to all of us with age. As hairlines recede and waistlines expand, cosmetic surgery becomes more attractive. While this blog is just around 2 years old, in human-to-blog years that is almost middle aged. In the last few weeks, various regulars have suggested that the site needs work to handle the large number of visitors and entries. This is an attempt to see what you would like to do with the site. I view this site as belonging to all of the regulars and I would like to solicit your thoughts on changes that you would like to see from different cosmetic touches to different structure. This entry will also allow discussion of those things (not people) that you least like.

I cannot promise immediate changes (I am swamped in litigation), but it seems like the regulars would like to see some changes in structure etc. Remember: I am a chimp. I have little skills or knowledge in this field.

Everything is on the table (beyond my removal and forced retirement), so do not hesitate to recommend anything from the most mundane to the most magnificent.

89 thoughts on “DOES TURLEY BLOG NEED A NIP AND TUCK?”

  1. Stop the harassing of moderates would be a start.

    The handful of lefty “regulars” here use intimidation & name calling to make their “points”.

    They need to be banned permanently.

  3. Carlyle Moulton : A list of which html tags are supported

    I haven’t seen a WordPress version that had this, however I can put one together and the Prof can either link to it from my site or he can copy and put it on the sidebar

    I think the only option (I could be wrong) for a spellcheck for comments is to have an edit option I’ll have to fire up one of my old blogs and see

    sorry for being all over the place, these were supposed to be one post

  4. JT,
    Love the site, I agree w/a link to tv appearances, etc.
    Ability to comment to a specific poster.
    Maybe a petition, “JT For Supreme Court”
    🙂

  5. mespo727272: put me down for a preview box, spell checker, archive by date function, and word processor function so I can either bold face or italicize the fonts

    I don’t think WordPress has a spellcheck for comments, maybe a newer version than any I have used. The same with the preview post

  6. is this bold?

    is this underlined?

    Comment being quuoted

    is this in italics

    Strikethrough

    Bold
    Italics
    Underline
    Strikethrough
    An Ordered List

    Bold
    Italics
    Underline
    Strikethrough
    An Ordered List

  8. Mary wrote:

    There are only a handful of raving left wingers that hang around here anyway.

    Wrong as usual, Mary. There’s a whole bunch of raving left wingers here. There are also a few Independent/Libertarians. Since your posts largely indicate you’re part of the lunatic right wing fringe, WTF are you doing here?

  9. I’d like (and need) a spell checker. Some blogs allow you to select the oldest and most recent comments and that option is nice on a long thread. I would prefer to have that option, rather than it being automatically preselected to start with newest first. Other people had good ideas as well. The only thing I hope doesn’t happen is banning comments on the bio–that’s some of my favorite stuff, because it’s so out there. It’s the wild west of this blog and I’d hate to see it shut down.

    Buelahman man said it best, “I come here for the content…You just keep rocking us with your insight and I am satisfied.”

  10. JT and Buelah,

    Perhaps a calendar of upcoming T.V.\Radio appearances?

  11. Mr Turley,

    Many of these suggestions are easily found in a simple change of theme. Look for something pleasing to your eye and has the ability to add widgets from your control panel.

    I come here for the content more than any flash, but flash can be nice.

    You just keep rocking us with your insight and I am satisfied.

    Did I say hello to Mary, yet?

  13. Close it down. There are only a handful of raving left wingers that hang around here anyway. I think they were banned from even the Daily Kos.

  14. ohh, nice catch, mespo.

    8) A respond to specific post option would be a nice addition to the general respond to thread posts.

  15. In Re RIL Website Modifications

    1) Archive – There are enough threads past now to certainly merit a little consolidation and perhaps improved searching (perhaps via metadata tagging so topics can be searched easier).

    2) Dedicated Threads – It seems some topics are so recurring/persistent that semi-permanent threads or thread groupings might be an option. These could be as general as Abuse of Police Powers or as specific as Tasers & “Non-lethal” Weapons or perhaps themed such as “The Supremacy Clause: Where do State’s Rights end?”. The Drug War. The Right to Petition: Lobbyist Graft vs. Citizen Access. The Prison Industry. Each of the component amendments of the Bill of Rights. Mules vs. Goats. Chianti vs. Pinot Noir. The possibilities are limitless.

    3) Encourage regulars to get avatars. It makes hijacking an identity harder (not impossible, just more difficult). An alternative – one that’s admittedly high maintenance – would be passwords (too much sugar for a nickle would be my guess). Since http://www.gravatar.com ties avatars to e-mail addresses, it’s an easy and relatively low tech buffer against this issue.

    4) Word Processing functions. Not so critical for me on my Linux machines as the system dictionary works just fine with WordPress, but I do think it’d be nice for some of the less experienced Windows users or those posting from MIDs (Mobile Internet Devices) or Netbooks that may not have robust OS or application support.

    5) Reverse the posting order as Patty suggested. On longer threads (100+ posts), the utility of this change become evident upon use – on shorter threads not so much, but something to consider.

    6) Turning the “Bio” section into a non-commenting section. It’s not that the conversation there doesn’t have its moments, but it is literally all over the map topic wise. That thread also seems to have picked up some persistent squatting trolls. The semi-permanent threads mentioned above would help diffuse this phenomena by “channeling troll aggression” to more specific targets.

    7) I liked the idea of a “Media Channel”. A little one-stop shopping for your media appearances would benefit the regulars who miss an appearance and it’s good PR to have it all consolidated for easy presentation.

  16. If possible, I’d like a reply function which already incorporates the target post to which the reply applies. For example if I am replying to Patty C — as I am wont to do– my reply would be directly below her previous comment. It saves a lot of cutting and pasting and it can be turned off if the comment is for the good of the entire order, as opposed to one that is more in the nature of a dialog. I am getting tired of typing *’s.

  17. I am sure I saw someone do it on a post in this blog, but it does not work for me.

    In the preceding posts the &lt stands for the mathematical less than sign and the &gt for the greater than sign. HTML uses these as brackets to mark tags.

  18. See my previous post is an excellent example of why preview is needed. in list item 4 my attempts to represent html tags with angle brackets failed, here is another attempt:-

    4/ I believe the following minimum set of html tags should be supported:-
    a) Bold &lt B &gt ….. &lt /B &gt
    b) Italic &lt I &gt ….. &lt /I &gt
    c) Underline &lt U &gt ….. &lt /U &gt
    d) Blockquite &lt BLOCKQUOTE &gt ….. &lt /BLOCKQUOTE &gt
    e) Strike oute &lt STRIKE &gt ….. &lt /STRIKE &gt , very useful for indicating that a commonly used term is a euphemism.
    f) Ordered and Unordered lists &lt OL &gt ….. &lt /OL &gt, &lt UL &gt ….. &lt /UL &gt , &lt LI &gt

  19. Professor Turley.

    My suggestions follow:-

    1/ Preview button. This would allow checking that hyperlinks do what they are supposed to do and finding out what html tags are supported. It is a problem in posting on internet sites that different ones support different subsets of html, the only way to find out if a particular feature is supported is to try it and see but without a preview facility this means submitting damaged posts when the html does not work.

    2/ Subscribe button. Sometimes one is interested in seeing all posts on a thread but does not oneself have anything worth posting at the time.

    3/ A list of which html tags are supported. Some sites put a short list above the Reply box, but an alternative is to have a separate page linked from your sidebar.

    4/ I believe the following minimum set of html tags should be supported:-
    a) Bold &ltB&gt
    b) Italic &ltI&gt
    c) Underline &ltU7gt
    d) Blockquite &ltBLOCKQUOTE&gt
    e) Strike oute &ltSTRIKE&gt, very useful for indicating that a commonly used term is a euphamism.
    f) Ordered and Unordered lists &ltOL&gt &ltUL&gt &ltlI&gt

    5/ In the beginning uppercase was used for all html tags but later standards for html encourage use of lower case. My impression is that not all internet sites support lower case tags. Ideally it is best to support both so that posters do not have to remember that this site only supports upper case and that one lower.

    6/ You probably need to employ an HTML nerd to deal with these things as no one has a right to expect you to do all the extra work involved in this blog after a normal day. How many hours do you work, 48 or 72?

    7/ Contrary to what I said in the previous item, a little knowledge of html is extremely useful for maintaining documents of any type. You do not actually need that much, while most things obey th 80% / 20% rule where 20% of what you know is used 80% of the time html obeys the 95% / 5% rule. You can an awful lot with a very small subset of html. For learning HTML I recommend books by Laura Lemay put out by SAMS publishing.

    8/ Your system already underlines misspelled or unrecognized words in red. A link to one of the many online dictionaries on your entry page could supply the other part. For example
    http://www.howjsay.com/.
    One thing that bugs me is that some sites use American spelling dictionaries and some British for words ending in ize or ise.
    It would be nice if either were allowed.

    9/ Your blog used wordpress.com software. A lot of these feature may be options that can be selected or not as required. Also later releases of software usually add more function

    Regards, Carlyle Moulton.

  20. Mespo has some good ideas I go along with posted on ‘Bio’:

    mespo727272 1, June 6, 2009 at 9:57 pm

    thatmtnman:

    If JT takes you up on your kind offer, put me down for a preview box, spell checker, archive by date function, and word processor function so I can either bold face or italicize the fonts.
    —

    Also, with respect to that page, why not put the most recent posts first, now since there so many, so time is not scrolling since 2007 or archive some, perhaps?

    Unfortunately, part of the problem is that your Bio page has been commandeered for other purposes. Like trying out a private stunt debate site, for instance… 😉

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