If you’re reading this, you’re at the new location of Drug WarRant.com.
Our home for the past 6 years was at blogs.salon.com using radio userland software. Radio hasn’t been upgraded in ages, and they’ve announced that the blog hosting will go away in December of this year. This is a big change (and a difficult transition).
I have moved the blog to a server at DreamHost and adapted a WordPress theme to be close to the old look of Drug WarRant. All 3,500 radio posts were exported to MT and then imported into WordPress relatively intact (with some formatting errors). Unfortunately, there’s nothing I can do with the old comments — they can’t be retrieved from the Salon server (except manually — over 20,000 of them).
Good news is that I’ll have full control over the future of this blog and all of its content and comments. It also means that we’ll be able to try commenting software that works best for the readers (right now we’ll start with WordPress’ built-in comment software, but we may also try Disqus or IntenseDebate). There will be other features that may be useful that I’ll add on as well.
To begin with, comments may require moderation for your first comment, but should be automatic after that.
I’ve got a lot to learn about WordPress and I’m doing this by myself, so bear with me. Please let me know about problems and give any suggestions. There still needs to be some tweaking in appearance and features, but I wanted to get the transition accomplished.
The old site will continue to exist (complete with comments, etc) until December. I’ll be adding forwarding information to specific pages over there in order to make the transition better.
Thanks for your patience. I depend so much on the readers of this site — you really make it possible for me!
Consider this an open thread and an opportunity to experiment with comments. Note: You can use most standard html tags including links, bold, italic, blockquote, etc. (no images).
Test comment. If you want to visit the old site, it’s still available here.
Cool…
Nixon lied to schedule Ganja #1
Nice! Onward; thru the fog!
I’ll spread the word as best I can for people to update their subscriptions/bookmarks/etc. Good luck!
Also, question (and sorry if this is a stupid question, but you know what they say about there being no stupid questions?), I’ve linked to you a few times from my blog. Post December, will those links when clicked on automatically forward to the corresponding posts that have been moved over here? Or should I go back and change the links manually to direct to this site?
Thanks, Katharine.
Unfortunately, once salonblogs shuts down their servers in December, any links containing blogs.salon.com in the address will go nowhere. If there are important links to individual posts of mine, you may want to search for the post above and re-link.
If you’re linking to pages (such as Why is Marijuana Illegal, Drug War Victims, Drug Czar Required by Law to Lie, etc.), I haven’t moved those over yet (should get that done within a week or so). The first two have permanent shortcuts (marijuana.drugwarrant.com and victims.drugwarrant.com) which will always work, no matter where the files are.
Thanks Pete, that’s helpful. I think I’ll have to set aside some time to go redo those links then!
I know how transitions can be a real PITA, but look at the bright side. You’ve learned so much. LOL Site looks nice and to have full control is a dream come true for you.
Yay! Love this site.
Great move Pete. New site loads more reliably.
Keep up the great work.
Hey Pete, I like the new couch!
jewel
Fresh digs-Nice!
Time to get gravatars 🙂 I really like the new look (and comments that don’t occassionally stall for 30 seconds).
Do we get to choose avatars?
I’m just learning this stuff myself. Yes, you can have your own avatar by going to http://en.gravatar.com/ and registering. Then upload whatever you like. Keep it G or PG, please.
Testing “gravatar”
Gravatar done and done… I think… testing 123
HUZZAH! I’ve been wondering how to get my face as an avatar instead of those random patterns for the longest time… awesome. Thank you thank you.
Pete,
Been a long time reader. I have used WordPress for quite some time and like it very much.
Keep up the good work and I have changed my feed settings to track this place.
B’Man
I have been reading you for few years now and have never commented. My big thought when I saw that you were moving was:
I wish that you were shutting down because there was nothing left to discuss. Not that I believe there really is anything to discuss, but I have not purchased any of the branches of government yet. So I don’t get to remove words like “prohibition†from the country’s vocabulary.
MightyMoe — I agree. Would have been nice to be shutting down the blog instead of moving it.
Looks great so far. Congrats with the new system, I’m sure it’ll even be better than the old one once you’ve settled in. I sure hope you’ll find a place for your couch 🙂
Cool, the new site looks good. Though it is too bad there is no way to capture all the comments, but I’m sure it would be a herculean task, and probably not worth the effort.
Cheers!
Thanks, swanksalot. Yeah, even if I could capture all the old comments, what would I do with them? I do have copies of almost all of them from when copies were emailed to me, and I could always search through them to find something, but reattaching them to their posts would be impractical.
Huzzah!
Pete, any chance you can use the hyperlink html that opens a new window rather than advancing the current window? just one of those things we dial-up modem users appreciate.
And congrats on the new site. I look forward to it being unneeded in teh near(?) future.
OK… nobody spill bong water on the couch this time!
Allan – where are you talking about? The blogroll? I’m pretty sure I’ve got that set for all of them to open in new windows.
If you’re talking about the link from the main page to the individual post page with comments, that’s a little trickier within the context of this template. Additionally, I think most people would be unhappy with that, especially since you can navigate from one post to the next at the top of the post page.
Don’t forget, you can always right-click any link to open a new window.
Good luck with the new location, Pete. Looks nice.
Just testing to see if I can post. Looks great Pete.
new site looks super pete.
This is great! Finally, comments that actually work (or so it seems, anyway). The other site would hardly ever let me post comments… always got the error after a minute or two of inactivity. Keep up the great work Pete!
Yeah, the commenting is so much better here. And now that your first one has been approved, all the rest should show up immediately.