A quick note.
Please expect more new commenting features from wpDiscuz add-ons to appear rapidly during the next week.
wpDiscuz Add-ons
All wpDiscuz addons are being developed by wpDiscuz developers at gVectors Team. These addons help us to keep top level development of the free wpDiscuz plugin. All essential and even dozens of extra-cool features are already available for free in the core wpDiscuz plugin. There are not any limits, any pro and paid versions of wpDiscuz. We have another dozens of awesome features in our to-do list which will be added for free in the future releases.
Thank you!
Sincerely yours,
gVectors Team
The full package of add-ons which was purchased for this site includes 18 add-ons, each of which has a full page of features. We have only added 4 of these add-ons. We probably don’t want ALL 18 of them, based on feedback from users here, but we definitely want MORE OF THEM, because some features in some of the add-ons appear to answer requests and complaints from users.
I say “appear to”, because some of these bells and whistles are ANNOYING. Some are “less so”.
Sometimes we have to TRY SOMETHING OUT to see if we like it.
I don’t THINK that top page numbering of comments is possible through these features, but we don’t really know positively until we’ve dug into them. wpDiscuz is full of interesting surprises.
My plan is to – as quickly as possible – install more of the add-ons and tweak the features ON or OFF, etc., to obtain a STABLE commenting system. It is after THAT system is obtained, that I will begin making slower code changes – securely and according to design – that will address any desires not fixable through the add-ons themselves.
Please use this thread as much as possible to register your thoughts, opinions, suggestions, and observations regarding the new features as they roll out. I will sticky this intermittently as I add new features, so that people can find it easily. Don’t be afraid to speak up.
THANK YOU!!!
W
Here’s to a better commenting experience!
Michael – I know you’ve had mixed feelings about your username showing in the past – what’s the verdict here? I think I may have to shut off the entire feature (comments AND usernames) if we don’t want usernames to show.
Terrible software that doesn’t let you pick one or the other, but that is where it is right now. I don’t have time to edit the software – I will just pull it if we are going to treat usernames as “sensitive”.
If it’s just me I prefer to pull it.
But keep in mind just d/c it isn’t “displayed” doesn’t mean it’s not there. In fact usernames are super-trivial to figure out – not displaying isn’t any more secure at all. Weakness in WP design IMO.
Well, I think DP doesn’t like it, either.
I wish we could just keep the comment feature, or hide the usernames, but there are no options for it. I would have to totally rewrite the programming.
I’m not here to program – I’m here to fight progs. So I guess we pull the whole add-on. I will deal with that in a little bit.
(1) Any accessibility features for readers?, and (2) can you link to those 18 add-ons, so we might help with prioritization?
Unsure about the first – yes on the second, although I find that their descriptions are lacking and just a wee bit misleading in a typical IT way. Can’t add the information right now – more later.
Also bear in mind that I will reject some of their features out of hand if they offer the slightest risk to my security model. Just being up-front about that. You understand, I’m sure.
Apologies…wrong thread. Moving over to the daily.
More features. Oh good. Soon I hope for features that will allow my refrigerator to schedule my dentist appointments and take out my trash.
Google Home, Siri or Alexa! DON’T DO IT!!!
https://www.usatoday.com/story/money/shopping/2020/11/24/alexa-apple-google-smart-speakers-what-you-need-know/6393555002/
Great! I hope there’s a feature that moves the comment box down to the bottom.
I’m hopeful, too, but that will likely have to be custom code, sadly. But we’ll see…..
I don’t know if you have ever observed the commenting at this site, JoNova in Australia, but I have always liked it for the ability to leave and go back to where I left off reading. The articles are good, too.
Corruption is like acid to democracy: the phase change a High Trust Nation risks « JoNova (joannenova.com.au)
A great site! Print’s a bit small and similar to the way CTH used to be, but – well, maybe that’s part of why it feels good! 😃
Hey, I’m able to “like” articles again! 👍
I am still totally baffled about this, but I will say that the “like” button is the result of some kind of WordPress.com, JetPack javascripting, and it’s likely that some kind of whitelisting or toning down of privacy software is what fixed that problem for you.
OK – listen up.
The first “next” (5th, to be exact) add-on has been added. It was prioritized to FIX A BUG – the ability to mention comments here.
The BASICS of the add-on are described here:
https://gvectors.com/product/wpdiscuz-user-comment-mentioning/
As you can see, this is not particularly deep or insightful explanation. I will include MORE information soon, but I’d like people to EXPLORE by running into the new features, too.
GOOD LUCK! It’s INSTALLED. Please report back!!!
OK let’s cite a link to a comment.
https://www.theqtree.com/2020/12/18/more-wpdiscuz-features-coming-this-week-on-theqtree-com/#comment-630909
Yup. that does not work. But if I copy a link, paste it, and remove all the stuff except the pound sign and the comment number, let’s see what that does:
#631058
OH YEAH THAT IS SUCH A COOL FEATURE!!!
Let’s try with the comment part left in it.
#comment-630836
Nope – doesn’t work. But if I just use #, then…..
#630836
YES – and you can CLICK IT, too.
Now trying a name:
@barkerjim
And another one:
Not sure why barkerjim’s name didn’t go active. I’ll try COPYING his whole name including the @, which I did for mine.
Experiment:
Here is Scott’s whole nic copied WITH the at symbol, using drag and control-C:
Whoa! When I hit return, it turned into “at79”
Let me try me:
Yup. It selected me from a drop-down. THAT is radical!
Now let’s see what happens when I post this…..
Interesting…
I received an email saying “You’ve been mentioned in a comment”… never seen THAT before… 😂
What is “nic”?
When I hovered my cursor over my screen name (in your post above), it shows “Posts: 0 Comments: 378”
Never saw that before either.
Shouldn’t I have more comments than that, if I’m a wolferine?
I will likely turn off the “Email people if they are mentioned” “feature”. But I wanted to test it. If you find a way to not get those emails, that would be great.
No, I think that’s a good feature! If someone mentions you in a post, that’s certainly worth checking out. So far it has always been positive when I stumble across them, but who knows how many I’ve missed?
What’s nice about the feature is that you can use it for a call-out that you want the person to see, but you can skip it if it’s not worth their time. That’s actually helpful to me as an admin.
CAN WE GET RID OF THE USER NAMES PLEASE!!!!!!
LOL! I just discovered that!
I turned on all the features. We gotta see what people think.
What do you think of the comment feature? Hover it, and click it!
#631076
Who is Susie Soprano?
Asking for a friend 😁
LMAO! If she’s not your friend, you’re in trouble. And If I don’t turn off this feature, I’m going to be in trouble!
If you need to delete it, or if DP wants it deleted, that’s fine 😁
I can’t do it anymore, or I would.
I was guessing it was a Twitter thing. I’m not really familiar with Twitter, but when I searched for it with duckduckgo, it didn’t bring anything up besides an unrelated instagram account (which I know nothing about).
I checked the string after my screen name too, and didn’t come up with any hits there either. I don’t know if that’s a way to contact me by Twitter or not, I don’t even think that’s one of my Twitter names.
I’ve had to open multiple accounts because I’m suspended immediately, as soon as I confront anyone or speak the plain truth about anything, and I can’t get back on after my suspension because I don’t have any way to receive their text message code so I can unlock my account.
People just often have different user names and display names. They often grow apart over time. You could change your display name to “Deplorable Scott”, or even “Irredeemable Scott”, or whatever you want!
“People just often have different user names and display names.”
_____________
So we can call her Susie now?
Probably safer to stick with Ms. Soprano… 😁
wasn’t the Sopranos about a mafia family? you might want to show MORE RESPECT Scott…wink, wink
“You could change your display name to “Deplorable Scott”, or even “Irredeemable Scott”, or whatever you want!”
_________
Pierre Delecto?
😂🤣😂
LMAO! Pierre “Scotty “Delecto!
Display names are a lot of fun!
Can we get rid of the @XYZ thing please?
Not yet! We have torment everybody, to see how many problems we can generate! 😅
I just got rid of it. Too many people here have “foolish” usernames that they’ve come to depend on not showing. I don’t personally consider it doxxing to expose a WordPress username, and evidently wpDiscuz doesn’t either – probably because so many places expose usernames AS display names or WITH display names.
But whatever.
The problem is that this damn software makes user references and comment references a joined-at-the-hip feature. I can’t just turn off the user stuff and keep the comment stuff. So the whole thing is GONE – unless all the people who feel skittish about their user names love the comment stuff so much, they’re willing to expose usernames.
Frankly, this add-on is not well-designed AT ALL.
I believe that the entire bundle of 18 plugins is here:
https://gvectors.com/product/wpdiscuz-addons-bundle/
Yup. That’s them.
I love a lot of things about the new site, Having a small list of issues now. Am trying to go it alone until my list is done please know I am still here, but mainly lurking.
Love you all.
OK! I just happened to catch this right when it went into the mod bin, but don’t worry if your comments fall into it – I’ll get them out. But you really do need to log in at the bottom of the sidebar if you want to get past moderation. Something is wrong there, and I’m trying to figure out what it is. You may have an approval email waiting.
Love you too!!! <3
Test.
Approved! Try another!
Can’t like the publishers thread. Have a bell, but it just goes in circles.
But you got in now! That’s good. Are you on an iPad?
Yep the new one son just brought to us today. No page jumping.:-)
Yesterday and since the new WP I also had to sign in every time Iwent toa new page.
Test for bell
I just saw this and liked it in my bell notifications.
No worky. Circle is making me dizzy. 🙂
Can you turn off a setting called “Prevent Cross-Site Tracking” under Safari? That is what stops the circle on Mac!
Will try now otherwise will email son tomorrow. Thank you.
will i have to sign in whenever I go to a new page or thread, or go to another website and come back here? Or will I be permanently logged in?
I just saw the little bell icon next to the post comment. I xed out the slash through on it. Hope that takes caare of the bell issues.
That bell is separate! It is another thing. That is a “per comment email” that notifies you BY EMAIL if anybody interacts with your comment. Ignore that bell, IMO – keep it OFF (slash) unless you want emails to that comment.
TY Wolfie. I’m starting to fade. The cancer has me sleeping a LOT. will still look for Prevent Cross Site thing.
Yes, give it a shot. We’ll keep looking for an answer! Several of us are tackling the problem of iPads and iPhones!
It worked Wolfie. I am replying from my bell button as opposed to my bellybutton….hahaha!
Wait – let me be sure about this. You’re on the new iPad, on the site, responding from the bell button on the black bar at the top? Or are you in the Reader?
Black bar on top of pade. Yes, responding via the bell button.
Wow – You’re liking a bunch of comments, too. Awesome!
Yes. I still am not able to like the author’s thread.
OK – let me try this test.
https://theqtree.com
Click that link and send me a message from the bell notifier on the black bar on the top of the window on THAT page.
I went to maricas and have the bar, but not at the qtree now.
So I am responding from maricas site.
I stupidly clare my history from today and came back her to make sure I wouldnt have to sign in again.
How do I get my black bar…bell back.
LOL. Can’t deal with it now. Sorry.
No problem. I was fading an hour ago.
Night night and God bless you and yours.
You too! More energy tomorrow! Sleep well – that’s the best! God bless! <3
The miracle! You are a gem Wolfie
Sorry I can’t help more tonight. Got too many things on my plate.
You may have a Safari setting called “Do Not Track”. WSB is testing turning that off right now. She’s having the same issue!
Done
Testing it out:
https://www.theqtree.com/2020/12/18/more-wpdiscuz-features-coming-this-week-on-theqtree-com/#comment-630575
#comment-630575
#630575
Yeah, that’s counterintuitive. Why would just a number sign followed by a six digit number become a link? Whatever, glad it works!
Now I’m just going to type in a number directly.
#631300
Holy smokes! I don’t even have to copy and paste, just number-sign and the digits typed in.
But will this ever get broken if I, say, type some number and a number sign, like, “Gee, she looks out for #1?”
Apparently not, but what about on its own line?
#1
Perhaps its smart enough to realize there is no comment #1. Or it’s got a time window outside of which it won’t work. Or it has to be on the beginning of a line which we can check with #631301 .
Apparently it needs to be at the beginning of a line.
#631301 what if it’s got stupid inane stuff after it?
Beginning of a line by itself it is, then.
#631301
No, that did not work.
#631301
#631301
#630575
#-630575
#631300
It doesn’t work consistently.
#630575
I just turned everything off. I’ll explain.
Trying a new comment.
The most important thing for ANY new ‘bell & whistle’ is the ability of the individual commenter to shut it off if desired. The less of ‘one size fits all’ the better.
I logged in to WordPress because it baited me with, “We will link your account to theQtree.” I was asked to log in by my email or user name. I thought Zorro_rides might be my user name but WP said that name does not exist. So I entered my real life email address. The screen flashed and burped once, and I was here. ‘Here’ has a black band on top with a bell, a little circle, the word ‘Reader’, an icon of a page, an icon of a W, and the word ‘My Sites’.
Hmm. Now I wonder, is my username ‘zorrorides’? I hope I don’t get turned into Susie Soprano. I heard that happens sometimes.
Oh! I see I got named
zorrorides . ‘Online’ right now as a ‘Cute Chipmunk’. Now Chipmunk I know, but what do I do with an @sign in front?- have I become twittered?
There is information put into registration — or brought over from prior registrations that is meant to be kept private, between the site owner and the user. Subsequent disclosure of private data is tantamount to doxxing, IMHO. And, as site owner, there’s at least one possible method of running this new toy without changing a lick of code and without disclosing private data.
Change the data.
Do something like, “on database with field reg_secret, make new field reg_shadow”, “copy everything from field reg_secret to reg_shadow”, “copy everything from field reg_public to reg_secret”. Turn on the plugin again.
Although I have to say, this plugin made me very glad I’d never registered.
Sorry, THAT right there is a bottomless pit of administration due to automated integration of the registration stuff with WordPress.com due to JetPack due to user demands for notifications due to (etc., etc., etc.) Even if I write scripts to do that stuff……
I’m not here to write scripts. I’m here to deal with what’s out THERE.
I plan to get back to fighting VERY soon. I roll through these add-ons, and we take what works and leave the rest.
This add-on SUCKS, the code is bad, there is almost no separability of things that should be separated, and frankly I want my money back, but yeah – we got our fucking tweets and YouTube videos PLUS editing of comments.
That’s what we paid for. Everything else is chump change – and chump code.
Nope. I figure I’m through these things well before Christmas, and then we get ready for the fireworks, unless they hit sooner, and then we delay even the last of the crappy add-ons.
Bear in mind that others think that I should drop JetPack NOW, and frankly I half agree. But I need certain things that make it useful, so it stays for now, until it’s too much WP.com liability.
As for the Author usernames in question…. perhaps this explains my lackadaisical attitude:
https://wqth.wordpress.com/author/susiesoprano/
What can I say? I’m more concerned about our more nameless grannies exposed briefly than the two usernames I’ve seen a million times IN PUBLIC. I didn’t shut this off for DP and michael – I did it for a few other people, TBH, whose usernames are really, really bad.
Anyway, I get back to fighting in a week. I’m getting very tired of I.T.
I sympathize with where you find yourself. Once wordpress.com showed themselves to be evil, you immediately and successfully dismounted, found another host, and got theqtree.com up and rolling. More and more, I’m suspecting JetPack was a poison pill on the way out the door — bearing the original taint of wordpress.com. But you have handled it with skill and discernment and I expect you will continue to do so.
I feel sorry for all the wordpress.com sites that have yet to clue in.
You have to understand, this is about my 6th or 7th WP account in the last 10-11 years. There’s stuff connected up, I’m sure, from sites I never use any more.
Just making this comment as public notice that the recently tested add-on (“User and Comment Mentioning”) is now turned off, and likely will be for good, unless and until we can “fix it” in some way.
This add-on turned out to have GREAT comment-mentioning features, but SCARY user-mentioning features, including the exposure of people’s WordPress user names. That is not an issue for MOST people, but it’s worrying for some, and probably not worrying for those who SHOULD be worried (i.e., some or all of their real name is in their user name).
We MAY try to do this one in the future, with some changes, but until then, I’ve deactivated the plugin.
It’s a shame to have to give up the comment-mentioning features…those were good.
But I totally understand about the scary doxing features.
Those were not good.
I trained one of my audit staff to manage the corporate website without ever learning PHP myself — it’s not difficult, but it is time-consuming, and I had other things to do. I really feel for Wolf at this point — he needs an intern or a nephew he can shove the time-consuming parts off on to while focusing his efforts on what is important.
Wolf’s greatest triumph has been to take his fate into his own hands, and he has done this very adroitly. Unfortunately, he now needs about seven hands.
If he lives near a college, he might be able to
sucker some kid into doing the grind workprovide an opportunity for some youngster to gain experience to cite on a resume.Sadly, using anybody but me breaks the security model.
No college kid would sacrifice himself or herself, let alone their friends or relatives, not to install patriotic code on a near-stranger’s website – particularly when doing so would serve whatever noble purpose perfectly fits their own political and social leanings. Whatever they would be told, it would be a “no-brainer”.
Nothing will be allowed to break the security model. I would doxx every single one of you before the core is broken.
I very much like the new comments appearing with a yellow background. I can quickly page down and find any new comments without having to re-read or try to go to the side bar and click on the pointer to each comment.
It is a real time saver.
Good. Do you overall like the new system? Do you prefer it to the old one, overall?
I prefer HTML to having to highlight and then go down to the bottom of the comment to pick out bold or whatever. On the other hand I do not mess up the close.
I just have to mark as I write instead of going back and marking after.
The blockquote is the worse. I have to change screen size to highlight a large block of text sometimes.
The HTML means I make more goofs, this way sometimes take more time for a long comment.
One nice thing about the JetPack notifications is that I can still do stuff “the old way” in those, and it works.
You can also pop up the HTML widget and do the coding in there.
So…..
I finally got around to doing what CPAs do…..building a spreadsheet. I’m trying to figure out the successfully implemented features, and which one was the problematic one.
I’m thinking that the four good ones are:
Media Uploader
Widgets
Emoticons
Embeds
And that the one that you were trying to “light-up” was “User & Comment Mentioning”.
I’ve already identified seven as being highly questionable. If I knew the status of the five, there’d only be seven that I might read-up on (the six remaining, and the one now withdrawn).
User and Comment Mentioning was the glorious dud.
Emoticons, obviously installed. Embeds was the biggie. Advanced Likers and Online Users are the two others installed.
Treat those 4 as a done deal. I’m happy that the features within them have been tuned to the preferences of the group now.
The remaining 13 add-ons are what’s left to consider. Yes – many are questionable.
Interesting. NoScript just threw a cross-site scripting problem on wordpress.com widgets. Probably from JetPack. I’m going to have to build another spreadsheet on JetPack — I suspect that every part of it is available elsewhere in a less tainted way.
OK, need to dig a bit, but my wpDiscuz spreadsheet is good for now.
So, on my second pass, I’m looking at the very concept of “Private Comments”, and I’m thinking:
“Wolf pays for the bandwidth for commenters to share private messages? No potential for abuse there.”
And I’m curious about the way “Widgets” are implemented. They’re clearly coming from JetPack, because you haven’t done the wpDiscuz ones — but you have the wpDiscuz ones available. Can you run a diff on the two?
I’m no longer doing any I.T. on this shit, my friend. This site is 100% fight now. We fight peacefully until the Inauguration of The Traitor, then it’s war.
I was going to try to csv you my spreadsheet as it got more populated, but I figured I’d save some time.
You have four working, and most people (including me) seem to like them.
I zonked the following (details available upon request):
Ads Manager
Comment Translation
Frontend Moderation
Google reCAPTCHA
myCRED Integration
Subscription Manager
Syntax Highlighter
If, for some horrible reason, you have any interest in pursuing the above, let me know and I’ll try to come up with a rational argument. They didn’t seem like they had anything to do with this site.
This leaves me with:
Comment Author Info — likely dangerous, much research needed
Comment Search — sounds innocuous
Media Uploader — sounds handy
Report and Flagging — errrrrr….
And two under a cloud:
User & Comment Mentioning — because it too freely shares what it can see
Widgets — because it might, or might not, be a less compromised version of something JetPack already provides.