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Weirdnesses This Evening!

I’m doing a bunch of bloggy things tonight, so you may notice some weirdnesses, like temporarily missing comments. They’ll be back (and better than ever)!

Rebecca Watson

Rebecca is a writer, speaker, YouTube personality, and unrepentant science nerd. In addition to founding and continuing to run Skepchick, she hosts Quiz-o-Tron, a monthly science-themed quiz show and podcast that pits comedians against nerds. There is an asteroid named in her honor. Twitter @rebeccawatson Mastodon mstdn.social/@rebeccawatson Instagram @actuallyrebeccawatson TikTok @actuallyrebeccawatson YouTube @rebeccawatson BlueSky @rebeccawatson.bsky.social

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63 Comments

    1. I have commented and seen only a part of my comment come up and then tried to delete it and then recomment. I don't know what the heck is going on! So I am cool with looking like an idiot and commenting again if it helps the cause!!!

      1. Ha, sorry for the confusion! Also I didn't realize all the newest comments were going into moderation. They've now all been released in a beautiful wave of comment goodness.

        1. I’m gonna comment right here, because that gets my comment close to the top.

          Any way to get back the next- and previous-post links? I don’t wanna have to go back to the front page to catch up on several new entries.

  1. Indeed, it just ate a comment when I Submitted. I hate Submitting.

    So the old login is not jiving with the new software?

    1. It's just that the comment system is installing now and it works by first indexing every comment on the site. As you might imagine, there are a lot of them, so it's taking awhile!

  2. Hey we can rate each other? Can you be banned for a low rating? Cuz if so, I want to try and get banned from MAL. Being banned from your own blog is the new black.

        1. Not sure. Did you log in with wordpress or intense debate? I'm sure it will take a few days to iron out all the bugs. Might be best to wait till the comments have finished updating.

  3. Hah, that explains Bug Girl's rape post having zero comments. I wanted to check in and see how the comment tally was doing compared to The Twilight Posts. Sad that those are a marker, but a twisted sense of humor keeps the sanity up.

  4. Rebecca Watson,

    Is there anyway we could get the old comments back? I really enjoyed reading them, and I wasn't able to read all of them before you made the change. Also, I was hoping to see a response to one of my comments, that was removed. I would be willing to bet that your other readers feel the same way.

  5. Did I accidentally step on Maria's foot Saturday night? None of my comments has shown up yet…

  6. I like the feature that gives time in terms of x days hours minutes ago – useful on the other side of the world.

    Still want to know if the old login still works?

  7. @Jack99: Well, it will now because I just got fed up with the system and deactivated it for the moment. It does have a lot of benefits, but it’s not playing nicely with Skepchick right now so will just have to wait. Sorry for the crazy night everyone!

  8. I came to the site this afternoon (1235 pm Wednesday in the UK) and found the site looking totally weird with a lot of stuff just missing. Logging in worked normally, but this comment is coming up as I type all in italics without my having done anything to make it like that. The preview is in normal type, though.

  9. I tried to set up an account on INTENSE DEBATE but some imposter is already there with MY username!

    Goddammit after about 2 years on Skepchick trying to establish just a tiny bit of street cred, albeit posting only once or twice a month, do I have to start over with (yet another) another username?!

    Trust me, you are my soulmates, and there is no other site on the net where I would even have bothered.

    (I am turning into a grumpy old man)

    If I interrupted Rebecca in her task, by jumping in at the wrong time, I am sorry cos I realise it’s probably like 5am over there. Maybe you need to take down the site for an hour to let the indexing happen.

  10. Not terribly happy with the new layout. Sorry. :(

    What was wrong with the old simple one? It was comprehensible, it worked, it wasn’t over designed… It’s like the sewage that took over Gizmodo has backed up into the rest of the web and soiled most of the other sites I like.

    I’m really grumpy about over designed messes.

    grumblemarblewarblefarble

    1. Sorry you don’t like it! There will always be people who hate changes like this, but alas, it was much needed. We’re still making some tweaks but this general design will be here to stay.

      The comparison to Gizmodo is funny . . . they switched from a layout much like this to a Flash-based site. Everyone wanted them to go back to this. (FTR I hated their new site too, but mostly just because of how buggy it was from the Flash.)

      1. I like the commenting system, that’s all good, but… well… yeah. Perhaps there is a less over designed layout? This one cuts off much of the information for each post, so that if I want to read said post I have to actually click into it. I don’t care for that (the old Gizmodo was also an ugly mess – it’s just worse now – I stopped going because of that).

        The top third of the page is an uninformative waste of space. I see headlines and pictures, and no information. Scrolling down doesn’t help. I see a redundant list of headlines repeated from the worthless top third. The AI, for example, has a picture and “continue reading” which pretty much guarantees that I won’t continue reading.

        The design removes anything informative from the front page. You’ve taken a wonderful and informative site and stripped all the ready information from it. Aside from the redundant headlines, that is.

        Change is fine if it’s good. So far I’m not seeing how this redesign makes the site more useful or informative. Pretty, sure, but I prefer substance to glitter.

        1. Thanks, we appreciate the feedback. A lot of the things you mention are already being fixed (the top featured posts won’t match the most recent, for instance, and more of each post will be shown above the fold).

          1. Yaay :)

            I apologize for being gruff – coffee hadn’t kicked in yet. I love this site, and love the information I get from it. I recommend it to everyone, so if I seem a bit passionate or emotional regarding its utility, it’s because I am.

            I’m a huge fan of this site and what it does. It is hands down my favorite skeptical website.

          2. No problem, Zapski, I figured it was just your love of Skepchick, which we greatly appreciate. I’ll be working with our designer over the next several days to improve the site bit by bit.

            Thanks for helping me test this comment threading system, btw. Now I know how far in we can go. Ha….

            ….also I have no idea what’s up with the italics in the comment submission box. Working on that….

  11. The new look took a bit of getting used-to. Especially before the morning coffee hit the brain cells. I’ll manage, thanks for asking…need more coffee…

  12. Hooray! Is pretty. I like it, a lot. Hope to see the new layout on TS and MAL soon (though, as an amateur website designer myself, I understand entirely if it takes a while to get everything to talk to itself).

  13. I like the new look, but it will take some getting used to. :)

    At this point I am seeing only a dozen or so posts on the most commented on threads, this may just be because of the indexing, and my comment is (like someone above) in italics.

    BTW – I am not complaining, I realize that this all takes time. Plus I have an ancient computer here at work (Windows ME, an old version of Opera, and can’t run flash) and things don’t always play well.</i?

  14. Congrats on the big overhaul! One thing that I’d like to see adjusted while it’s being tweaked is an big increase in the amount of text before you have to click on the ‘continue reading’ button. Maybe others feel different, but it drives me crazy having to click on every post to read the content.

    The ‘continue reading’ button works great for significantly long posts, and was implemented pretty well here before, but just please not on every post.

    Sorry to be a complainer, but I hope some constructive feedback is useful. Thanks so much for all the work you do!

    1. Yep! Doubling the amount of text you see on the front page is at the top of the to-do list. :) I’m also hoping we can fix it so that the formatting and links aren’t removed.

  15. I am chiming in to ask that there not be jumps for every post, at least not skepchick quickies. Those are checked at break on my kindles slow browser, so clicking an exta link is just extra trouble; and they never run long that long anyway.

    I do like the nested comments though. Helps me follow topics better

    1. Yep, that’s one of the things we’re working on: longer excerpts on the front page that retain links and formatting, so your Quickies will still be Quick.

  16. Old dog, arf bark huff puff, roll over damn it!! I’ll get used to it when my somewhat atrophied neural synapses have enough viewing repetitions under their belt. The comment upgrades look promising and I’m hoping the edit function returns. The only complaint I have is related to the background color which now uses my windows active field color that I have set for word documents. It’s a dull light amber that I like when typing reports, but not so much on websites.

  17. The site still looks pretty messed up to me. Images are cropped and the text of each item has lost all formatting. Text that should include links does not.

    I’m using Windows 7 with Firefox 3.6. Same problems in IE8. Same problems in Chrome.

  18. Testing, testing (testy, testy! – but sorry to be a pain, guys)
    Does anybody ever look down here after 24 hours?
    Is this thread a “sticky”?
    (Clearly not,from the dates, but why not, for such an important site change)
    Then why is the banner icon at the top of the site?
    What is the status of the upgrade, please?

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