DLD 2/15/08: There's Too Much Confusion

by Apricot on Feb 15, 2008 12:29 PM PST Comment 48 comments

Where is the DLD? Has it been eaten by the Fanshots?

I tried posting a Fanshot, and (1) it failed, and (2) it doesn't feel the same as having your links lovingly ignored by a hundred hardcore fans.

So. Here is my Link Dump, complete with dumping thought process as a debugging trail for future DLDers and psychologists. This will make it useful to AN3 debuggers and very boring to humans.

{Hey, the cursor randomly jumps out of the textbox when I type too fast and loses focus, much like myself.}

Marine Layer on the new ballpark. {Okay hitting the link button pulls up a blank window that says {$lang_insert_link_title}. Really not helpful.

{Ahhh.... okay turning OFF WYSIWYG has returned things to sanity on Safari/Leopard.} Rule 1. Don't use WYSIWYG.

{Okay, if these links are old, then why don't YOU open up the Dump tomorrow, Mr/s Smarty Pants?}

U.S.S. Mariner predicts A's will win the division, proof solid that there is are horrible bugs in their simulation software.

{Okay, previewing the post was scary. First, it previewed but didn't give any way to re-edit. Secondly, it put things into a funny mode where HTML meant WYSIWYG and vice-versa. AND DAMNIT, STOP LEAVING THE TEXTBOX WHEN I TYPE FAST. Rule 2.To get out of preview hit Esc, don't hit Back.}

{throws }

{OKAY, RULE 3. DON'T USE ANY BUTTONS ON THE BAR. The last button apparently means "destroy your post" if you the whole thing selected. I think in advanced mode, there is a button that means "begin colonoscopy". Don't push that one.}

Okay, it's been a lot of work to post these two links. I apologize to gigglingone for thinking she was a wimp for being exhausted posting her DLD.

This is a game that looks intriguing for fantasy baseball types: Simyard.

Okay, now the whole second half of my post doesn't preview. Why? No one knows. RULE 4. Trying will only lead to FAILURE.

{Ahh... totally gave up on the web interface and I'm editing this in Textmate, a hardcore text editor. The freedom, the feeling of ease of entry... I love the feel of bug-free text entry in the morning... it feels like... Typography.}

{Ah, now I know why the editing felt so familiar. It's EXACTLY the feeling when you're trying to type something and small child is on your lap randomly hitting mouse buttons, keys and body parts.}

RULE 5. Edit text and past it back in, unless you want to simulate having a small child screwing with your computer.

{I'm just going to assume that this is being saved correctly, because my preview hasn't changed in many keystrokes.}

By the way, I talked to the maker of killfile for Firefox, and he has kindly agreed to try to adapt killfile to AN3.

That's all the energy I've got. Dump away. If you can find this diary!

11 recs | Comment 48 comments

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Comments

I certainly wasn't going to try posting another DLD.....

I apologize to gigglingone for thinking she was a wimp for being exhausted posting her DLD.

See, I told you it was hard work!!!!

There's no crying in baseball!

by gigglingone on Feb 15, 2008 12:36 PM PST reply actions 0 recs

was going to post a DLD...

but you beat me to it. So I will post it here.

A"s Moneyball favorite, Jeremey Brown, has decided to retire, despite prospects of still becoming a Major League player, though likely as a Backup Catcher or DH. Granted, he was the slowest runner in his league, and most teams frown upon that, but... yeah. The A's signed Matt LeCroy as his replacement for Sacramento.

In case you did not hear yesterday, a man, Stephen Kazmierczak, went into a Geology class yesterday armed with two pistols and a shotgun, killing 5 students, wounding 15 and then killing himself. Apparently he was off his meds for a week and was behaving erratically, but what meds they are remains unknown.

In less school shootingness news...

Never recharge your MP3 Player again! Scientists have created a microfiber that generates electricity. The fiber, if made into a shirt, could easily power your MP3 player or Phone while walking.

Apparently some stupid criminals in England tried to cut through a power line with a hacksaw and blowtorch. The thieves are still on the run, though expected to be badly charred, or nicely crispy, pending your outlook on things.

On a side note: why isn't the SportsSpyder RSS on the new site? It was a great resource for finding A's news and DLD material! They even started linking to AN threads as well!

Dump Away.

by Zonis on Feb 15, 2008 12:45 PM PST reply actions 0 recs

Do all...

things turn double spaced in comments with line breaks?

Or was it made as such?

"The hard... is what makes it great."

by Jjjsixsix on Feb 15, 2008 1:06 PM PST up reply actions 0 recs

There's the answer.

"The hard... is what makes it great."

by Jjjsixsix on Feb 15, 2008 1:07 PM PST up reply actions 0 recs

Bad craziness

I haven't even attempted a diary yet in the 3.0 regime. Sounds like a recipe for frustration. When the going gets weird, the weird turn pro.

There is an A in Whimsy.

by FreeSeatUpgrade on Feb 15, 2008 12:51 PM PST reply actions 0 recs

postings have decreased in AN 3.0

both diaries and comments. Not sure if that's a 3.0 thing, or if it's a time of year thing, but not a lot of postings the past few days... If I had more time, I'd go back and look at the DLD's from this week last year, but I'm sick, so I won't.

There's no crying in baseball!

by gigglingone on Feb 15, 2008 12:57 PM PST up reply actions 0 recs

I'm prepping one

for the Friday night back page

I think it's a matter of everyone getting used to this.

I think for better or worse that I am commenting more, posting less.

"Oakland has now increased its payroll to the point that it now ranks third in the Bay Area among all McDonald's franchises.”

-Sandy Alderson, former A’s general manager.

by 67MARQUEZ on Feb 15, 2008 1:44 PM PST up reply actions 0 recs

yah, i am have not gotten

comfortable with it yet.....and the novelty has worn off.

alaska A

by ak_A on Feb 15, 2008 8:36 PM PST up reply actions 0 recs

phrasing is more difficult on AN 3.0

alaska A

by ak_A on Feb 15, 2008 9:29 PM PST up reply actions 0 recs

I'm prepping a diary for the Saturday front page

Making tables in AN 3.0 is basically impossible. There go us statheads.

stat-addled alien overlord

by salb918 on Feb 15, 2008 1:06 PM PST up reply actions 0 recs

seems like

the diary posting stuff is all broken, but presumably will be fixed.

The A's colors are green and gold.

by mikeA on Feb 15, 2008 1:23 PM PST up reply actions 0 recs

we'll be putting tables back in shortly

I'm one of the guys that built the new SB Nation

by Trei Brundrett on Feb 15, 2008 1:38 PM PST up reply actions 0 recs

The FanPost system

recognizes "pre" tags in the HTML format, but refuses to save them. It's really irritating. I spent a while formatting my tables, they looked good in WYSIWIG and then...gone.

I wonder if "pre" tags work in comments...

AN 3.0 can kiss my ass

...guess not.

stat-addled alien overlord

by salb918 on Feb 15, 2008 1:47 PM PST up reply actions 0 recs

Gammons says Blanton Trade Unlikely

Behind the Insider wall:

As for Joe Blanton, the A's talks with the Dodgers about acquiring the right-hander are very quiet. The Reds also seem unlikely to make a trade for Blanton. Thus, unless someone is willing to come in hard now with an offer, A's general manger Billy Beane seems willing to wait and see what the market looks like for Blanton in June or July.

by HigherPie on Feb 15, 2008 1:04 PM PST reply actions 0 recs

Beane has no reason to rush this

The system now has lots and lots of talent. Blanton is under the A's' control for a few years. And there are usually a decent number of teams looking for starters up until the trade deadline. And if nothing works out before August, there's no harm in Blanton remaining an A.

"And Julio Franco is batting right-handed!" -- Wayne Hagin, A's radio play-by-play, mid-80s

by Nick on Feb 15, 2008 7:33 PM PST up reply actions 0 recs

sorry to hear of the trouble Apricot

we'll look into the problems you encountered in Safari for the FanPost editor. is this a good summary?

- cursor leaves the text editor in wysiwyg mode as you're writing
- unable to close the preview window easily
- link insert box is empty
- toolbar buttons not working properly (in HTML view? or both?)

let me know if I'm missing anything there and again I apologize that the experience was frustrating - we'l look into fixing these problems immediately.

I'm one of the guys that built the new SB Nation

by Trei Brundrett on Feb 15, 2008 1:26 PM PST reply actions 0 recs

I thought we didn't need a subject.

Avatars moved to the right side of the comments now? when did this happen?

Also it wasn't very easy to find this DLD. I mean I went to Recent Fanposts and didnt see a DLD there so I gave up. To my surprise upon checking later, it still wasnt there but was in the recommended section...hmm.

Also Clockwerks, any word on whether you guys will be making the separation between the Recommended Fanposts and Recent FanPosts more visible? Im having a really hard time with that.

And Im sorry this might be too much already but it just dawned on me....did you guys consider giving the DLD its own section a la FanPosts, Fanshots? I dont know, I suppose the necessity of it can be debated... just a thought

by Amnesiac on Feb 15, 2008 1:45 PM PST up reply actions 0 recs

yes

we are working on an update that will attempt to make the separation between recommended and recent fanposts more obvious.

we didn't consider a DLD section because it's an AN specific thing y'all do and this platform serves all SBN blogs. however, there might be a feature we could build into the system that allows Tyler to create a special DLD only list.

I'm one of the guys that built the new SB Nation

by Trei Brundrett on Feb 15, 2008 1:56 PM PST up reply actions 0 recs

There needs to be some pruning

of the recommended posts. Right now there are 11 posts in that section. We never saw more than 4 or 5 at once on the old version of AN. The ranking methodology of recommended diaries was never really clear, but it seemed to be based on both number of recommendations and recency of the recs. There are some posts that haven't received a new rec in 3 days, yet they are still up at the top of the recommended post section. In old AN these would have drifted back down into the general listing of diaries by this time.

by Soaker on Feb 15, 2008 2:01 PM PST up reply actions 1 recs

agreed

There's no crying in baseball!

by gigglingone on Feb 15, 2008 2:31 PM PST up reply actions 0 recs

I am strongly, strongly, strongly

NOT in favor of a separate DLD section. The DLD has always been community-created and community-judged. To give it "official" status is to misunderstand what the heck we do in the DLD.

stat-addled alien overlord

by salb918 on Feb 15, 2008 2:33 PM PST up reply actions 3 recs

Salb is wise, please heed him

The DLD lives or dies by the hands of the users that care about it, working under the same structure as every other user-generated fAnpOSt. To make it different is to ruin it. It's like Thurber on the analysis of humor. Comparing it to dissecting frogs, he said "it can be done, but the frong tends to die in the process."

There is an A in Whimsy.

by FreeSeatUpgrade on Feb 15, 2008 2:50 PM PST up reply actions 2 recs

we had to destroy the DLD in order to save it

Even if they're clever, they become stupid with repetition. @('.')@

by monkeyball on Feb 15, 2008 2:54 PM PST up reply actions 0 recs

Yes, I know I destroyed it, you don't have to

rub it in

by theblackpearl on Feb 15, 2008 4:30 PM PST up reply actions 0 recs

Well all I was saying was

that it would be nice to have all the DLD's in one area. Users would still create it, it would just be nice to have it all organized. Sorry, just like this organized here but none the less, it was just a suggestion.

by Amnesiac on Feb 15, 2008 3:19 PM PST up reply actions 0 recs

hi clockwerks

I hope my diary was taken in the spirit of good-natured frustration and not childish griping. I think half the issues were caused when I was sent off the page (I believe by typing too quickly in WYSIWYG mode) to a previous page and I had to reload.

I didn't realize the preview window was floating, so I hit back and then hit forward and things went to heck.

The link insert box in WYSIWYG I believe is a genuine bug.

Toolbar buttons are pretty unclear in function, which caused me to delete my diary by hitting the last "insert note" button, which I hit while looking for an "insert picture" button (which I never found). Luckily I obsessively copied my diary into my clipboard every sentence. I am not sure that the buttons themselves are out of spec; just the spec is confusing.

All in all, I'm sure people appreciate how responsive you've been. It's just hard when people come to their favorite bar and find all the furniture is different and the menu is all rearranged... people don't like change, and change comes from within. So people don't like coming from within. Which sounds icky and will probably get me a CGV.

by Apricot on Feb 15, 2008 2:10 PM PST up reply actions 0 recs

thanks for the feedback

The cursor disappearing and the link window are known bugs for sure. We're working on those.

Just a few more questions so we can track these other issues down and fix them:

Did you see the 'x' button at the top right of the preview window? We should probably put a not on the preview window that it should be closed, not to hit the back button.

Did you have all of your text selected when you clicked the 'insert note' button? I haven't been able to recreate the bug where it deletes all your text when you press that in Safari/Leopard.

Would it help if we put labels on each of the buttons when you rollover them?

I'm one of the guys that built the new SB Nation

by Trei Brundrett on Feb 15, 2008 3:49 PM PST up reply actions 0 recs

A big yes on rollover text for buttons

I've been playing around with the software you guys have created for a month now, and it took multiple trial and errors to figure them out. (I still think the blockquote looks like a list button)

Rollover text should greatly reduce the confusion cause in transition, or at lest ease the transition.

AIM: SouthSideCheat

by The Cheat on Feb 15, 2008 4:27 PM PST up reply actions 0 recs

answers

labels good.

Yes, I had the text selected... so it was (sort of) my fault.

I think I didn't see the X on the preview. I was expecting a new page (since AN2 was like that) and some kind of button returning me to the editing screen. The second time through I saw how it was supposed to work. But then the preview wasn't refreshing, so I remained depressed.

by Apricot on Feb 15, 2008 10:51 PM PST up reply actions 0 recs

MCNAMEE ACCUSES CLEMONS!

Former trainer says E-Street Band saxophonist was the source of HGH used to inject Debbie Clemens.

"His body produces it naturally. Why do you think they call him 'The Big Man'?", said McNamee.

Clemons denies the charge saying his size is the result of the hard work ethic instilled in him by his grandmother.

Rushing in to back their respective corners, George Steinbrenner and Bruce Springsteen are expected to square off in a Boss vs. Boss showdown next week before Congress.

Moving quickly, the Senate has called in Tony Danza to act as moderator.

Dark Chocolate Truffle

by Ice Cream on Feb 15, 2008 1:39 PM PST reply actions 0 recs

clemens, dissected

this is his brain

"Oakland has now increased its payroll to the point that it now ranks third in the Bay Area among all McDonald's franchises.”

-Sandy Alderson, former A’s general manager.

by 67MARQUEZ on Feb 15, 2008 2:51 PM PST up reply actions 0 recs

All right. The grandmother and Tony Danza links didn't work.

Let's try this again:

Clemons denies the charge saying his size is the result of the hard work ethic instilled in him by his grandmother.

Ba-dum!

Dark Chocolate Truffle

by Ice Cream on Feb 16, 2008 12:47 PM PST up reply actions 0 recs

off topic, sort of

this remindes me of the time that Rocket's mom was at one of his games, and frank thomas faced him with the bags full.

Dan Patrick on SportsCenter: "Earlier today, we showed you Clemens' mom. Now here's Frank Thomas' granny. Gone."

Classis.

"Oakland has now increased its payroll to the point that it now ranks third in the Bay Area among all McDonald's franchises.”

-Sandy Alderson, former A’s general manager.

by 67MARQUEZ on Feb 16, 2008 2:01 PM PST up reply actions 0 recs

Some great lines from A's writers.

Notes: Blanton hits the ground running.

Somehow I don't believe it. Link.

And the best line of the offseason:

No players were harmed in the production of Thursday's workout...Rich Harden is among those scheduled to throw today.

A little editing, but here's the link.

And just for fun, more proof the Gigantes are clueless. Molina: Giants don't need HRs. Good thing they've got grit!

It's Rhodes Scholar Night at the Coliseum tonight.

by Scottbass on Feb 15, 2008 1:51 PM PST reply actions 0 recs

Don't need HRs?

Once an Angel, always an Angel... playing for them makes you brain-dead for life.

Your 2008 Athletics: It's Nothing Personal.

by PaulThomas on Feb 15, 2008 2:51 PM PST up reply actions 0 recs

Oh no, the RBI monster is back

Instead, the blueprint calls for putting runners in motion and getting them home with clutch hitting. There, Molina excelled last season. The Giants scored only 641 runs last season, and Molina drove in a team-best 81.

So, let's get this straight. The Gnats are replacing
Bonds - .276/.480/.565, 170 OPS+
with
Molina - .276/.298/.433, 86 OPS+
But Bonds only had 66 RBI to 81 for Molina, so obviously Molina was the more-valuable player, so they figure to gain from this.

Oy.

"Evidently, a large number of people said, 'We really need more vermin at the ballpark, Artie.'" - Nick, 10/7/07

by doctorK on Feb 15, 2008 3:26 PM PST up reply actions 0 recs

Harden throws 38 pitches; arm still attached to body

A little upbeat news from Phoenix for your Friday afternoon.

by Soaker on Feb 15, 2008 2:52 PM PST reply actions 0 recs

In that article, we can now guess what his

new name and age will be, since we know what happened the last time he had visa issues.

Report card: Pitchers Angel Garcia and Santiago Casilla have yet to report to Spring Training. Garcia is absent due to "personal reasons," while Casilla has a "visa issue," Geren said.

by theblackpearl on Feb 15, 2008 5:44 PM PST up reply actions 0 recs

So

Casilla will now be known as Kiko Garcia, and Angel Garcia is retiring.

Good times.

Speaking of visa issues, did Henry Rodriguez ever straggle in?

Your 2008 Athletics: It's Nothing Personal.

by PaulThomas on Feb 15, 2008 7:57 PM PST up reply actions 0 recs

Today is the 5th anniversary of the biggest protest in history.

And that's all I'm saying on that.

by green star oakland on Feb 15, 2008 3:28 PM PST reply actions 0 recs

a lot of disappointed Pitt fans that day?

Geez, though, a massive protest for three losses in a row seems somehow disproportionate -- like attacking the wrong target entirely.

Even if they're clever, they become stupid with repetition. @('.')@

by monkeyball on Feb 15, 2008 4:25 PM PST up reply actions 0 recs

If they protested after THAT game...

what are they going to do after tonight's debacle?

Your 2008 Athletics: It's Nothing Personal.

by PaulThomas on Feb 15, 2008 7:55 PM PST up reply actions 0 recs

wtf, tim allen??

http://movies.aol.com//movie/redbelt/30128/video/trailer-no-1/2069634

A's v Giants "is kind of like the difference between going to see the Ramones and going to see the Bee Gees. A's fans will go see the Ramones." -BB 07/27/05

by xbhaskarx on Feb 15, 2008 3:29 PM PST reply actions 0 recs