Software upgrade
Posted by Super G on December 25, 2008 - 3:10am
The site has just been upgraded from Drupal 5 to Drupal 6. For the most part it should behave the same as before, with a few subtle improvements here and there. If you see something strange or broken, it is most likely not by design, so please leave a bug report in this story's comment thread.
For those of you keeping score at home, this is TOD 3.2. Here's the rundown:
| Version | Platform | Launch date |
|---|---|---|
| 1.0 | Blogger | 03/22/2005 |
| 2.0 | Scoop | 08/19/2005 |
| 3.0 | Drupal 4.7 | 12/24/2006 |
| 3.1 | Drupal 5 | 02/26/2007 |
| 3.2 | Drupal 6 | 12/25/2008 |
Merry Christmas!
[UPDATE 12/25 1:45p EST] Not surprisingly, there are a few kinks.
If you are not logged in, links to the front pages of the TOD:World sites (e.g., http://europe.theoildrum.com) go to the main page. Story pages seem from those sites seem to be OK.Fixed 12/25 9:30p EST.- Comment rating has been disabled until I work out some issues with it.
“It takes as much energy to wish as it does to plan.”
—Eleanor Roosevelt
Contact
- Content: editors at theoildrum dot com
- Tech support: support at theoildrum dot com
License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 United States License.
SuperG! - I think the edit page button should say Publish rather than Save. The former is a much more daunting thing, the latter something that might be presumed to be a private matter between one and ones' pc. (and now I'll click on Save anyway)
Comment rating has been disabled until I work out some issues with it.
But please spend your time on something less disliked instead! A viral marketing program perhaps.
Found a bug (err ... I mean new feature): When you go to user's comments and look up one of your old comments, it (the new install) does not show the comment in thread, but rather as the comment appeared alone when posted. Thus you can't see if somebody else responded. Over all the new install seems to be working pretty well. Good job and Happy Holiday.
The links go to the comment's subthread, so if there are replies, they will show up. But you will not see the comment in the context of all of the comments on that story.
I think that's great. Now you can search for comments without nuking the "new" flags for the entire thread.
Thanks for your work, Super G.
Merry Xmas, hope it didn't crimp your holiday.
Many thanks to you, Super G. The person who assembles the platform upon which others stand for pontification deserves honest recognition.
While you are digging into the karma code, might I suggest a new display similar to +xxx|-nnn, where x is up votes and n is down votes? Or, perhaps add onto the current summation display the volume of cast votes?
Enjoy your holidays.
and Nate has noted your supreme efforts: http://www.theoildrum.com/node/4904
Is it a bug or a feature that the comment rating system has gone? At least I don't see it.
Edit: Ignore me, I just read it's disabled.
Merry Christmas!
Yes, it seems there are a few bugs with the (very helpful) comment feature that are about to be fixed.
Thanks for your work on keeping this site up and running; most people don't get to see all the lever-pulling and hard work needed to keep such a site running smoothly.
Great job...and I think I've found a bug.
When I logged in under a comment it brought me to the user profile page instead of the story where I clicked Log In.
I see the "n comments, m new" for each thread is back - I presume that the resource issues that had it turned off (to be simply "some new") have been resolved.
Well done!
AKH
Thanks for all your work.
One thing I'm missing -- the SEARCH engine. Is that permanently deleted?
The Google search box is in the left sidebar, second from the top. It's true that it does not appear on the TOD:World sites; maybe I should add it there.
Having done too much maintenance and too many complex upgrades myself, I sincerely appreciate the work everyone is doing to keep the site running and up-to-date, especially Super G.
In understanding how difficult it is to manage this, I still have a suggestion for the comment rating to avoid losing user feedback information.
In having only the net rating, both the comment poster and the reading community lose information on the balance of opinion. Instead of showing the net rating, show the total up votes and the total down votes.
It means one thing to see a comment rated -2, and another to see it rated -7/+5. There are surely comments that don't get more attention because of a zero rating, when the votes may have been -4/+4.
Imagine election results reporting only the winning number of votes and not how many people cast votes for the opposition. Or reporting the results of a study without reporting how many people were in the study.
In providing only net feedback via a rating system, the quality of that feedback is diminished because the contents of the rating votes are lost.
Please consider. And thank you again Super G and everyone for keeping TOD top-notch.
A suggestion: It would be helpful to be able to see (in addition to comments, and stories in which one commented) replies sorted by date of reply.
That way, one could see immediately if there are new replies to one's comments, rather than having to click on each and every comment or story.
Thanks!