housekeeping

19 posts

Patience

66 comments

I know how excited everyone is to jump into the fray here, and write posts, and add cat videos and help us find the location of Osama bin Laden.

I like your enthusiasm! (Slaps you on the butt.)

That said…. please, please, please try to be patient with little bugs you find or requests for author accounts or whatever issues you’re having. This isn’t Gawker Media. We don’t have a team of incompetent professionals handling technical issues. We have a team of one incompetent amateur working on solving all these problems. So bear with me.

  • If you requested an author account, I’m not ignoring you. I’ll be setting you all up tonight.
  • If you posted your first comment and are waiting for it appear, please be patient. We’ll approve it and then after that your comments will appear immediately.
  • If you’re interested in getting an author account, read this.
  • If you’re having problems posting comments, please read this.
  • If you’re having problems viewing the site, let us know at [email protected] and tell us what browser you’re using.

Commenting with YouTube videos

27 comments

Great news, folks! Now you can embed YouTube videos in your comments. All you have to do is click the little “Embed Video” button right above the reply box and paste in the video’s URL.

Enjoy!

P.S. If you’re still having trouble posting images in your comments, know that it’s SUPER easy. All you have to do is type in:

<img src=”URL OF IMAGE”>

That’s it!

How to start commenting on #Crasstalk

429 comments

Ok, dogs and poodles (shout out to the 2 Live Stews), gather round. If you’re having trouble posting comments or want to start posting comments on Crasstalk, here’s how you do it.

Crasstalk uses a commenting system called IntenseDebate. It’s not necessarily perfect, but it’s very nice. Many, many sites also use the same system. For example, Wonkette has been using ID for the past year or two and it’s believed that their commentariat is decisively winning the internet war against the Paultards, Tea Partiers, PUMAs, RedStaters, SkoalRebel and other crazies.

So how do I get started?

To post comments here you MUST create an IntenseDebate account. Using IntenseDebate is easy once you’re set up with a new account.

Here’s how to create a new IntenseDebate account.

Note: IntenseDebate accounts have absolutely NOTHING to do with WordPress accounts. The WordPress author accounts we use here on the site are NOT the same as WordPress.com accounts. So even if Botswana has approved you as an author, you STILL have to create a brand new IntenseDebate account.

IntenseDebate accounts are used across any site that uses the ID commenting system. This is pretty neat. It means you can go over to, say, Wonkette and post a comment with your same exact profile/avatar. The one downside is that if your name is fairly common or very long, you’ll have to tweak it. Don’t worry if it tells you your desired user name is already taken. Just try putting in an underscore or writing it slightly differently.

If you have any issues using IntenseDebate, please go read their support site.

Also, I made changes to the About page, so if you’re curious about getting an author account, go there.

The new Crasstalk commenting system

43 comments

Crasstalkers,

I’m sure you noticed that we have a new commenting system. We’re now using IntenseDebate, which is a fairly popular blog commenting system that a lot of other sites are already using. (Wonkette is one of them.)

There are a few really nice things about this comment system:

– You can now reply to another commenter and have your comment appear directly underneath.

– It’s now much easier to see who made which comment.

– You can post images in the comments. To do that, all you have to do is use the [img src=”URL”] tag, (with the html brackets of course.)

Enjoy.

Karaoke Rules?

12 comments

So imagine, hypothetically, that you just started writing on a blog with a bunch of people that you barely know.  It would probably be pretty similar to singing Karaoke with your co-workers, right?  A collaborative endeavor, where you are feeling each other out and you will see each other again tomorrow, but the interactions are mediated, and it’s not like you are likely to really tell someone else how you really feel.

How much is too much?

As with Karaoke, it’s a fine balance.  Start posting a lot more than everyone else?  You’re a mic hog.  Everyone will secretly wish that you would just go home.  Post too little?  Well now the party is just going to suck. And you know what?  It will be your fault.  Plus, you will force them to pick up the slack, turning them into mic hogs!

Song selection matters

Yeah, I love Steve Reich too, but just because you somehow found a Karaoke Bar with Different Trains Part I doesn’t mean that you should find yourself murmuring “fastest train” and “From New York to Los Angeles” into a microphone.  We are all busy; we could be anywhere. Make it fun.

Different Trains Part I

Drinking!

Do it.  Actually, this one is pretty simple.

Experiment

Sure, everyone says that you should bang out your “go to” songs.  But this is wrong.  And boring.  If I wanted to listen to a perfect version of Midnight at the Oasis, I’d ring up Maria Muldaur. I can’t imagine she’s very busy.  (This is how it’s done!) Nope.  I want to hear you try something new and crazy.  I want to laugh (and drink).  Something you are familiar with in the middle of the evening is fine, but you should be pushing yourself.  Give me something new!

…but not too much

But look, if you have only heard the chorus to a song, don’t sing it.  If you don’t know anything about the subject, don’t make me read about it.  Unless it’s really funny.  Then it’s okay again.

Whatever you do, don’t start with a defense of anonymity and then a musing on blog-sharing etiquette.  That’s like leading off with I Will Remember You and Sweet Caroline.  What kind of loser are you anyway?

We need to dress this place up a bit

18 comments
We have to look our best

I don’t know about you, but I’m thinking we need to dress this place up a bit. The free theme we’re using is a bit too plain and there are bunch of issues I’m seeing:

  • The kerning in the headlines is way too tight (letters are running together).
  • The name of the user who posts a comment is impossible to read.
  • The sidebar is kind of boring and appears to have some sort of margin issue that I’m not exactly sure how to fix.
  • There’s absolutely no color other than white.

So here’s how you can help us win the the internet: Let’s all try to spend a few minutes looking for the best WordPress theme for how we want our site to look and feel. If you’re not sure where to look, just start with a google search for “Free wordpress themes” or something similar. There are tons of sites dedicated to distributing themes.

And try to think about how you want the site to function. We could just pick another basic, simple bloggy type theme or it could be a theme that gives the site a more “magaziney” feel like The Awl. If you stumble across a theme that you like, please post it in the comments. Then I’ll see if I can put together a list of themes in one post and we can vote on which one we like the best.