Kiesow 7.0

Hint: at the time it probably had something to do with telling stories.

This comes to mind as I spent the week moving the paper’s blogs from the LifeType platform to WordPress Multiple User (WPMU) the same platform that powers wordpress.com. The project was a whole lot of fun as we had to figure a way to export all of the users, posts and comments from 20 blogs. Did I mention that LifeType does not include a simple export feature?  In the end we found a sample script that sort of worked and had a freelance developer customize it to go Lifetype-to-WPMU. It still involved a fair amount of exporting and importing SQL files, but the heavy lifting was all scripted as part of the Wordpress import feature.

The nail in the coffin on the project was trying to redirect the correct URLs for every blog and post from old to new. Considering that our Lifetype setup was fond of underscores and SEO and WP dictate that hyphens are preferred, some mod_rewrite was called for.

Not being a developer and not knowing much about mod_rewrite - it took me about 12 hours to finally find a combination that worked. So - this is why I am in journalism now - finding solutions, learning new things, and telling stories.

Here is the code - it is the “good enough” solution. But, any programmer would probably tell you it could have been solved in about half the lines:

#
# Rewrite old permalinks to new location
# FROM: /web_notes/2008/07/28/more_on_comments/
# TO: /webnotes/2008/07/28/more-on-comments/
#
RewriteRule (.*)/(.*)_(.*)_(.*)_(.*)_(.*)_(.*)_(.*)_(.*)$ http://blogs\.nashuatelegraph\.com/$1/$2-$3-$4-$5-$6-$7-$8-$9 [R=301,L]
RewriteRule (.*)/(.*)_(.*)_(.*)_(.*)_(.*)_(.*)_(.*)$ http://blogs\.nashuatelegraph\.com/$1/$2-$3-$4-$5-$6-$7-$8 [R=301,L]
RewriteRule (.*)/(.*)_(.*)_(.*)_(.*)_(.*)_(.*)$ http://blogs\.nashuatelegraph\.com/$1/$2-$3-$4-$5-$6-$7 [R=301,L]
RewriteRule (.*)/(.*)_(.*)_(.*)_(.*)_(.*)$ http://blogs\.nashuatelegraph\.com/$1/$2-$3-$4-$5-$6 [R=301,L]
RewriteRule (.*)/(.*)_(.*)_(.*)_(.*)$ http://blogs\.nashuatelegraph\.com/$1/$2-$3-$4-$5 [R=301,L]
RewriteRule (.*)/(.*)_(.*)_(.*)$ http://blogs\.nashuatelegraph\.com/$1/$2-$3-$4 [R=301,L]
RewriteRule (.*)/(.*)_(.*)$ http://blogs\.nashuatelegraph\.com/$1/$2-$3 [R=301,L]
RewriteRule ^(((.*)_(.*))(?!wp-\b))/(\d\d\d\d/\d\d/\d\d)/(.*)   http://blogs\.nashuatelegraph\.com/$3$4/$5/$6 [R=301,L]
RewriteRule ^(((.*)_(.*))(?!wp-\b))/ http://blogs\.nashuatelegraph\.com/$3$4/ [R=301,L]

Wow - comments seem to be a popular topic around the old Journo-blogosphere this week.

It started with a radio piece on NPR: On the Media: Comments on Comments

It got kick-started by Jeff Jarvis: Comments on comments on comments

Kevin Anderson followed up with a post reviewing the whole thing: On the Media and Comments on Comments

And of course it spilled over to blogs and forums and Twitter and Google Reader and Friendfeed and ad infinitum. Hey, the medium IS the message. Wow.

By coincidence - we changed our commenting policy on Monday. Changed it slightly. Our approach has always been to start with the most open system possible and then gradually adjust ‘as the situation on the ground’ dictates.

We have been using Disqus.com to host our comments for about six months. Based on the feature set they offer we have gone with a hybrid approach to moderation. If you are a registered user, (with a verified email address) you can post directly, automatically, immediately, without moderation and without delay directly to any story on our Web site. If you are unverified, you can post but your comment gets put in a moderation queue awaiting review.

Not surprisingly we have very little trouble with registered users. Also not surprisingly it is the unregistered (unverified) commenters who try to spam the site with obscene, racist and libelous comments, not to mention the dedicated collection of sock-puppets we have attracted.

Disqus also has some reputation management tools and a ‘report offensive content’ button - but I think the simple act of verifying an email has been the strongest deterrent to bad behavior. Keep in mind, we do not require real names - only that if you pick a screen name you stick to it.

So after six months of this system, our biggest problem has been that the volume of comments makes it difficult for us to keep up on the average day. We have had an informal policy of reviewing and approving comments whenever we could. So, it could be three times a day, or three times an hour, depending. Unfortunately, as policies go that one is not very scalable or sustainable.

So, in the new policy announced yesterday - we are going to start moderating unverified comments twice daily. This will greatly reduce the stress on the approval system in the office, but hopefully it will also encourage readers to actually go and register for an account.

We can only hope that requiring commenters to be the owner of a working email account is not too high a barrier to participation.

Why Newspapers shouldn’t allow comments

In which the writer pulls memorable comments from the NYT site such as this as proof of her thesis:

“if he wasn’t a reporter for the new york times, would we be reading this?”

“Monetizing your shameful past is disgusting. Haven’t you harmed your loved ones enough for one lifetime?”

I totally agree. Newspapers are allowing far too much conversation. And though only 5% of it is trash - that outweighs the other 95%. In fact - on that basis I now believe that because of this one ill-informed column newspapers (and Web sites) should not allow columnists. It just isn’t worth it!

So - finally had a day or two to spend working on the site again. Nothing fancy, just a basic WP install with a template I have been hacking around with.

Most fun - I added a blogroll on steroids at the bottom. I am dynamically publishing the names of all the people I follow on the various social sites. The list shows just their names - if you hover you get what ever piece of info they have most recently updated on the respective sites.

Right now I have Friendfeed, Delicious, LinkedIn, Facebook, plus a regular Blogroll I still need to add a number of people to. I would have Twitter in there is their darn API was working tonight.

There are still some CSS tweaks to make, nav items to add and so on - but pretty happy so far.