Friends. Long time, no post. Derek isn't aware I'm publishing this, but I'm sure he won't mind. *cough*
Being blessed with some free time -- I intend to revamp this place. Comparatively, I'm surprised that the community here has stayed more or less active for so long, in that the design and interfaces here at the site haven't changed much since the 2003 inception. Even 1.5x manpower makes management of bagatellen a huge responsibility, thus the less than static state many of you have seen throughout the years (license expirations, data loss, software transfers, blah blah). Derek has been at it solo with help from some contributors since early 2006.
My intentions are as follows, and I strongly desire input and suggestions from you guys and gals:
Additionally, I am considering either upgrading to the latest Movable Type rev, or shifting from the site's Movable Type interface to Wordpress. I am hesitant at this point because of the work that may be involved in the latter. Since our last technical nightmare, MT has become an open source interface and a new, better build is available that I intend to research. Any input on this end is appreciated.
The goal is to first make the site fresher, current, and user-friendly; and second, to relieve Derek and other authors and commenters of the frustrations frequently involved here.
Grad school starts back up for me soon, so time is tight to make these changes. Your input is appreciated.
Posted by al on June 27, 2008 8:06 AMHallelujah, Namor hath returneth!
Seriously, man, you just made my year & it’s only June! Soup can rehook-up forthcoming.
Posted by: derek at June 27, 2008 9:31 AMI am not a huge fan of wordpress, if anything I'd like Bags to be less blog-like than it is.
It'd be nice to view comments separately from the reviews, so that one could take the critic's points without wading through a bunch of bs. Now, luckily (or not), most of the reviews lately haven't garnered much of a peep. I remember not too long ago when certain discs seemed to incite a flame war that'd be tagged on beneath.
Just my .02; kudos to Al for pondering a re-imagining of the site.
Posted by: clifford at June 27, 2008 11:02 AMClifford: I understand your point of view about the comments, especially in light of what lies immediately below. From my very journeyman experience with MT (having written for a group blog that used it but having no hand in design/admin), you can format posts w/a "more" function, so that one would need to click on "more" to see the rest.
Another idea that could solve the problem of "missed" reviews (where a bunch of them get posted all at once, but only the latest shows up on the main page, such that a number of readers aren't aware of all of them), would be to have separate pages for the different kinds of content but a main page that has short previews - maybe just titles or the first # words for all posts?
Maybe some sort of index of musicians/groups/albums that could be generated through use of tagging?
Posted by: Sarah Lockhart at June 27, 2008 11:47 AM"It'd be nice to view comments separately from the reviews, so that one could take the critic's points without wading through a bunch of bs. Now, luckily (or not), most of the reviews lately haven't garnered much of a peep. I remember not too long ago when certain discs seemed to incite a flame war that'd be tagged on beneath."
This will be strongly considered, Cliff. Flames becoming permanently attached to the document cheapens the whole endeavor, IMO, and I've always been back and forth on that feature. If I was an artist and had to read a pissing contest directly below a published review of my work, it would leave a bit of a shit taste.
Posted by: al at June 27, 2008 11:48 AMThe “comments” infrastructure is actually the main culprit of the chronic “server load” issues that have been hobbling Bags for a while. I’d hate to see it go away completely, but agree that a more streamlined &/or segregated approach would be beneficial.
Posted by: derek at June 27, 2008 12:06 PMObviously, I like the comments. Even when it gets unpleasant, Bags is still kind of a meeting point due to the comments.
The thread below is even morphing into a fairly civil discussion of Dixon's music.
The option to see the review without comments is a good one, and I can see why Clifford wants that.
It could be nice if the writer has the option, for example with the Dixon thread it seemed obvious that Derek knew it would generate comments, and he just wrote a short paragraph.
I see no reason to segregate or disallow the comments, and that goes for me as writer and as musician.
Real democracy ain't pretty. Especially once you abolish servitude and release the free man. ;)
Posted by: "Raging Bull" djll at June 27, 2008 2:55 PMI don't think full segregation is the goal here. We can initiate a feature were all comments are accessed through a link, rather than have the entire stream embedded in the page.
Additionally, there has always been the option for a reviewer to disallow comments on what he/she posts. That option will remain in the upgrade.
Posted by: al at June 27, 2008 3:09 PMUPDATE:
- New hosting contract is in place.
- At the new place, I have both Movable Type and Wordpress installed for testing. Right now I'm strongly leaning toward Wordpress at the new place. How does this affect you?
- Strong possibility that further commenting on old threads will be impossible (including this one, once the transfer is complete). Why? The comments feature in Wordpress has an entirely different architecture. But comments will still be a central feature to the site.
- Most/all of the old data will be archived exactly as you see it, with the same addresses for continuity.
Posted by: al at June 30, 2008 3:28 AM.................................................. © 2003 - 2006 bagatellen ..................................................