I'm still learning the ins and outs of this new platform. Bugs are being stomped and useful options brought to life. As a reader you deserve to know what "issues" have been resolved — perhaps you encountered one or two — as well as what tools are new and spiffy.
Yesterday, for example, I began to explain to a reader a little something about the comment section. But the explanation soon swelled into a mental mass of words too unruly for a reply comment as other thoughts, updates and a particular need came to mind.
On to the business at hand. In a recent post the reader I referenced above left a "P.S." — "I like the new comments section features." So do I, especially that which allows the posting of
an image or video. What I dislike is the robotic "Verify" that pops up when clicking
"Publish." My guess is that most any commenter would dislike it too. The multipanel of images that appears intrudes on the user with real brain-teasers like "Click on the pictures with a bus." Humbug, that's gotta go.
Another item ... On my previous platform I received an email notification of each new comment (including its text), a function I enabled so that a reply, possibly, would be timely. Additionally, I could delete in a flash any abuse directed at another commenter — feel free to heap such on me, but not others. Last, for a couple of years my old site was haunted by Sieg Hiel! types; their "insights," destined for instant obliteration. As of today, however, knowing how to enable email notifications remains elusive. But I'll get there.
I search "Help" to find answers to tasks such as eliminating annoyances like "Verify." The site's help section has indeed been helpful — on occasion, really helpful in letting me know You Can't Do That. It seems that for some functions to change what I can't do to what I can do requires a platform subscription upgrade.
So for now I settle for not doing. Explanatory note, short version: I can't afford to do otherwise. Longer version: At the end of February, for personal reasons I'm relocating to Seattle, Washington. The city's rental property is unconscionably expensive, but I was made a cost-cutting offer I couldn't refuse. Sweetening the deal, no gun was held to my head as a mafioso made an optional promise. Still, my impending move comes with a brutal one-time expense.
I'm talking nearly three grand just to shove my few earthly commodities, namely books, some clothing, a dresser and this here laptop, into a rented "pod," which is both market-standard in cost and superior in ease, but better yet a long-deserved up-yours to the ruthless yokels who operate U-Haul. Oh, the story I could tell.
Decorum prevents me from doing so. Decorum should prevent me from writing what follows, but I can't afford that either. At least this comes with a confession of venial sin, which I'll count as almost decorous.
What you're reading is without a doubt the tackiest, most brazen variant of asking for your financial support I've yet committed. Its singular merit — or saving grace, as God's vicar would say — is sincerity. I would not ask, not yet anyway, if it weren't for the relocation bucks I'm about to unaffably unload.
In my asking there's another reason, and it's a weighty one. Not my physical relocation but my site's move to a new platform has done significant harm to its readership. I knew moving the site would hurt and hurt bad; any downtime always has. But I've been uniquely unsettled by the readership loss — that loss = donation loss — in this go-around. It's recovering, but Lawdy is the process ever agonizingly prolonged.
I believe that covers it. You'll find a "Donate Now" button on the main page, and at the bottom of this one. The process of donating is in itself an improvement. Contributions no longer go through PayPal. You may use a credit or debit card, same as always, but your donation is now processed through the platform's encryption technology.
With that, I say thank you. Tomorrow, or maybe later today, we return to our regular schedule of anxiety-ridden commentary on ... you know.
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