The Bishop and the Butterfly: Murder, Politics, and the End of the Jazz Age
    oldenGoldenDecoy's picture

    Where's the Dag Blog Supreme Court???

    By oldenGoldenDecoy on Mon, 01/04/2021 - 6:53pm |
    Or ... is the Dag Mod a dictator?


    PeePee - Thu, 01/28/2021 - 5:13pm

    You're off-message - unity, or as Rodney said,
    "why can't we all just get along?" Whether it's
    interesting is another matter - not everyone
    seems programmed to entertain.

    January 28, 2021 11:30 AM ET - NPR
    Facebook 'Supreme Court' Orders Social
    Network To Restore 4 Posts In 1st Rulings

    Facebook's oversight board on Thursday directed
    the company to restore several posts that the
    social network had removed for breaking its rules
    on hate speech, harmful misinformation and
    other matters.

    ~OGD~

    Comments

    Let me help you by showing how you go about attempting to contact some by googling their name and then attempting to interact with them through the social media where they actively participate

    http://www.michaelwolraich.com/

    https://twitter.com/wolraich

    https://www.linkedin.com/in/wolraich/

    last activity on Dagblog here on this thread

    Mazel tov, Doc. I'm so glad to hear that fatherhood and babyhood are going well. What a time to have a kid! Mine is currently prancing about in an Elsa costume, and I'm not much younger than you. Pandemic + 4 year old + Manhattan apartment = surprise. (If anyone wonders where I've been, see surprise)

    PS dag needs better emoticons


    by Michael Wolraich on Mon, 01/04/2021 - 5:15pm

    I don't know for sure but I suspect he has no interest in hearing cases from shit-stirrers on a website he pays for and continues to maintain in excellent condition, including with full moderator permissions for every writer on the masthead at the top of the page. (What I do know for sure: one of those people, not named Peracles and not named Michael Wolraich, told me straight out that he couldn't take the messages from shit stirrers here about meta issues as regards childish beefs with other members and as regards moderation, and that's mainly why he quit participating here.)

    (edit to add a note for Michael Wolraich if he happens to read this, which I doubt he will, but you never know: TRULY appreciate how long you have continued to maintain this site where people can post political news and analysis under a pseudonym--even without registering, and without advertising except for your book--an incredible rarity these days!- would fully understand if you shut it down because bozo children are giving you grief)


    by artappraiser on Thu, 01/28/2021 - 7:56pm

    Do note my "off-message" meant off *Biden's* message of unity.
    I was actually considering trying to rein in the herd of cats & trying to turn this into a less contentious blog, considering 90% is you archiving different material under different categories, & 7-8% is recurring arguments over exactly the same topics that have been regurgitated over and over, with obviously few newcomers. (I suppose neither I nor anyone else treated Jeff very nice, but it didn't seem like he was here for the intellectual party)


    by PeraclesPlease on Thu, 01/28/2021 - 8:14pm

    AA and PeePee...

    Sheessh... I've been here 10 1/2 years.

    When I returned about 7 months back after hiatus,
    all I asked was, "Where'd everyone disappear to?
    Have they all gotten tired of the twitter posts being
    used in place of conversation and comments?"

    All I've gotten since then is a ration of crap from the
    current active mod, PeePee, the purest of the pure.

    Oh and... I know who  Michael Ghengis Wolraich is...

    Now throw out some new cheese...

    Your whine is is passed its time...

    ~OGD~


    by oldenGoldenDecoy on Thu, 01/28/2021 - 11:40pm

    Arta left too and most of the people were gone before she came back. So blaming her or twitter posts isn't the cause. Nor is blaming PP for bad moderation. Most left before he was put on the masthead and given moderation privileges. Don't ask me why people left. People's behavior always confuses me. I never have any idea why they do the things they do.


    by ocean-kat on Thu, 01/28/2021 - 11:47pm

    Thank you very much, AA. I'm gratified that you all are still loyal to dag after so long, and I'm glad to be able keep it going. I'm also grateful to PP for taking over moderation as I slunk away.

    Sadly, I don't have the bandwidth to participate these days. Raising a young 'un takes up so much time and attention, and it's way worse during the pandemic. Between parenting and work, I haven't been able to make enough time to finish a book proposal that I've been working on, let alone write op-eds or post at dag or the other things I want to do.

    Fortunately, dag has been doing all right on autopilot, though it's in sad need of an upgrade. There's a backlog of security updates, google search is no longer optimized, and the email feature isn't working anymore because I'd need to update the email module to comply with sendgrid's new requirements. If anyone feels like taking on the IT management, I'd be happy to turn over the keys.

    Sigh. This community has meant a lot to me over the years, and I'm sorry that I'm not much engaged with dag anymore. But I'm glad you all are still here, and I still enjoy stopping by to lurk every so often.

    PS I do tweet every once in a while, which is about as much media as I can muster. The other day, Wattree, of all people, snidely replied to a sarcastic comment I made. Naturally, he missed the sarcasm. I guess some things never change.


    by Michael Wolraich on Fri, 01/29/2021 - 1:23pm

    Thanks, Michael. In general I need to do a real life reboot myself (no, no more kids, that's you & Doc's side of the street). Theoretically I could update the email module & install some of the security updates, but if it breaks... (I couldn't even figure out how to increase # of stories in the Creative section, so arcane Drupal rules & documentation doesn't  seem to be my prime skill, and  whom I gonna call? Dagbusters...).

    We've kind of moved to a new setup to deal with more tweet content and collected content around a particular topic - haphazardly enforced, but kinda works. Would be great if anyone took the time to actually *write* long content, but people do what they feel like and have time for, so the new focus is aggregating specific topics, and mixing in culture & creative & sadly more and more obits as us olds get older.

    Of course there's no module yet for "how to stop repetitive fights" we've rehashed a million times and what not, but I guess that's what shows the robots haven't assimilated us quite yet.


    by PeraclesPlease on Fri, 01/29/2021 - 1:54pm

    I wonder if it makes sense to migrate to a hosted service like WordPress.org. It would probably take a lot of work to set it up, and we'd lose some of the customization, but at least it wouldn't require coding, and maintenance would be a breeze.

    Maybe WP has a "how to stop repetitive fights" module. ;)


    by Michael Wolraich on Fri, 01/29/2021 - 3:30pm

    Michael, glad to see you step in for a bit. A question: Is there a reasonably easy way to check the average number of discreet hits to dag by the day or week or month, whatever? 


    by A Guy Called LULU on Fri, 01/29/2021 - 3:40pm

    A quick glance, only 7.66 seems to have a real exploit - - but it's been 2 years already with no apparent breakins.- while a later one's only for compressed files. Search works kinda "good enough"? And the only module to update, the editor. All things considered, prolly the path of least resistance is just update the editor and fix email and run it til something breaks? not sure how hard the email is to install.  [I'll look for a Fight Club module - if can't stop it, might as well go pro]


    by PeraclesPlease on Fri, 01/29/2021 - 3:56pm

    SendGrid now requires you to use their api to send messages. Makes sense, because sending a username and password from the server isn't secure. But that requires a new module. This one is the most popular: https://www.drupal.org/project/sendgrid_integration.

    But note the fine print: "While Drupal 7 officially has a minimum PHP version of 5.2.5, this module only supports version 5.5 or newer." We're on 5.3 or something like that. So we'd have to upgrade PHP to use iit.

    There's a new one, but I don't even know if it supports Drupal 7: https://www.drupal.org/project/sendgrid_api.

    So, not a trivial undertaking.


    by Michael Wolraich on Fri, 01/29/2021 - 5:39pm

    PHP 5.6 then older Sendgrid?

    Or a less-than-the-best email that handles PHP 5.2?

    (5.6 was end of life 2 1/2 years ago, so most modules plus Drupal 7 *should be* fairly safe for that sole PHP upgrade?)

    Do all email modules say they require 5.5 min at this point?


    by PeraclesPlease on Fri, 01/29/2021 - 10:37pm

    In theory, a php upgrade should be fine, but I find that things usually end up being more complicated than they seem.

    We don't have to stick with sendgrid, but I haven't look into alternatives. Email me if you want to discuss. I'll have more time once I finish this book proposal, but that may be another month.


    by Michael Wolraich on Sun, 01/31/2021 - 1:47pm

    Ok, yes, always takes longer than advertised. Lets take it to email after you're done.


    by PeraclesPlease on Sun, 01/31/2021 - 2:37pm

    Hey dad, thanks for taking the time to stop by to visit your old second family, we thought you abandoned us because we let ourself go or something.

    Probably a wise choice to prioritize your kid and not tweet very much--look what happened to George Conway when he did the opposite.

    Thanks for sharing the experience with Wattree, sounds like a fun distraction to look up his account and see what fights he is getting into over there.  I was on sabbatical for death, destruction and bankruptcy in my life so I didn't see what happened when he left here, I can only imagine from mentions here and there and his behavior previous.

    More seriously, many times I have imagined what I would do if stuck in a Manhattan apartment during this pandemic (with a kid yet) to remind myself how grateful I need to be that I am in this little house in the Bronx with a yard, problems like broken water heaters etc. nothwithstanding. You are a hero, really, to have managed that this long without committing suicide, I would certainly not give a damn about this website. Cheers and hang in there.


    by artappraiser on Fri, 01/29/2021 - 4:31pm

    Well, there are 9 levels of hell, and I'm still pretty far from the bottom. Our family has been healthy, and we were able to get out of town and visit grandparents during the summer. We got a babysitter in the fall, and my daughter's been in school 2-3 days a week (except when it's closed because of covid cases like this week). So it definitely could be worse. The real danger is not suicide but matricide. The good news is that we haven't killed each other yet. Just need those damn vaccines to get distributed.

    Oh also the NYC kindergarten application process is totally insane--even when there isn't a pandemic on.

    I'm glad that you're doing all right. Hang in there yourself!


    by Michael Wolraich on Fri, 01/29/2021 - 5:49pm

    For some time now, the site has become a group of cantankerous commentators who might agree on some points but disagree about many others. I have trouble following many of the debates because I am often uncertain where the hotly fought divides really are. 

    Many of the debates have components that I consider worth acknowledging despite disagreeing with other parts. The personal nature of many statements turns me off, whoever makes them. I am guilty of that myself at times. I turn myself off when that happens.

    With all these areas in need of improvement, I don't see it as a cancel culture. If it is one, it really sucks at it.


    by moat on Thu, 01/28/2021 - 9:43pm