Category Archives: Blog News

Call it the calm before the storm.

February 1, 2012 – 9:50 pm

I haven’t been putting my posts on the Sports TV Wars on Bleacher Report (with only one exception), because I use terminology like “Sports TV Wars” that would likely turn off the uninitiated. But they are posts on actual news stories, and I’d like to be able to establish myself as an “expert” of sorts on the topic, a sort of go-to place for analysis for those interested, which putting them on Bleacher Report can only help, so I keep not liking my inability to put them there.

So seeing my recent post on the Breeder’s Cup’s move to NBC get linked to on the Fang’s Bites blog gave me pause. Not merely because Fang’s Bites is a vaguely prominent blog in sports media circles, one I personally follow (sometimes), run by someone I’ve had… interesting run-ins with on Twitter, who nonetheless never links to my posts despite almost recommending the site to people two years ago (if only I wasn’t trying to move to MorganWick.com at the time). But clearly he felt the post was accessible enough to his audience, though to be fair the only obtuse terminology I use in that post is a single, easily-missed reference to “wars”.

So I’m wondering… should I keep doing what I’m doing (and maybe work harder on the Wars posts to make them more worthy of such links)? Cut down on the obtuse references to my own personal concepts so I can put them on B/R? Or perhaps my Wars posts are accessible enough to put on B/R as is? Would people understand them on B/R if I just did a little introductory post to get them acclimated?

The floor is open for your opinion on this sensitive topic.

By Morgan Wick | Also posted in Sports TV Business | Comments (0)

Yes, the launch of the forum is not a mirage!

January 31, 2012 – 11:59 pm

Several web-watchers have wondered if the forum is obsolete. We live in an age of blogs and Facebook, where everyone and their mother can voice their opinions for the world. The forum is less necessary now, when it was the primary way for people to express their opinions.

Color me unconvinced. Blogs and social media can’t mimic the sense of community or conversation forums can. Blog comment threads have been compared to forums, but the problem with blogs is that, most of the time, only one person can create a post. That one person ends up setting the tone of the conversation and determining what everyone talks about. The fact that many popular blogs on general enough topics end up resorting to the “open thread” to allow people to talk about topics that the blog author hasn’t seen fit to post on suggests that such blogs are missing something by not having forums where anyone can post.

One of the blogs I regularly follow is the Frank the Tank’s Slant blog, which became rather unexpectedly popular after its author wrote a rather provocative post on college football conference realignment. Shortly thereafter, the author decided to launch a forum for the site, but shuttered it shortly thereafter, citing as part of the reason why that he liked that “each blog post has turned into a free flow discussion on expansion issues, with news articles and viewpoints converging in a centralized place”, preferring not to have to hop to different places to follow a discussion. To each his own, but I find that to be something I don’t like about Frank the Tank’s Slant: that each comment thread becomes an unwieldy stream-of-consciousness discussion of issues tangentially related to the subject of the post and impossible to follow in full, because people are using the most recent post, whatever it is, to put up links, current news articles, and other such things they wouldn’t need to use the post for if they could start a thread on a forum. (I have a feeling what “Frank the Tank” really wants is a chat room, or something else akin to a forum with one thread.)

Nor am I convinced by the argument that these issues can be averted by stringing several blogs together and allowing them to “talk” to each other using trackbacks. Blogs are not Facebook, and blog posts are not forum posts. Being a blog author necessarily makes you the center of attention for that blog, and within the confines of that blog you’re expected to speak with a voice of authority, to everyone, at least when it comes to actual posts. Even if you don’t want to use your blog this way, no one follows every single blog in existence, so you’re expected to provide some summary of what you’re responding to to get people up to speed. Obviously, such circumstances don’t lend themselves to conversational discussion.

Sites like Facebook, meanwhile, have many of the same problems as blogs, while also in some ways having the opposite problem. Facebook does not lend itself easily to organizing discussions according to topic as opposed to who your friends are, and similarly you can only hope to even find a discussion, let alone follow it, on Twitter by already following someone involved in the conversation, and preferably at least two, and to follow it in real time you pretty much have to be following all of the participants. Ironically considering their alleged nature, such sites don’t lend themselves well to creating a community around a topic and holding discussions about that topic. “Frank the Tank” does have a point when he talks about having a centralized place for discussion as opposed to having to follow it in a bunch of different places. (I’ll have more on these issues and others later, possibly as soon as next week.)

Da Blog doesn’t have much of an audience at all, let alone a “community”, nor does it have any sort of single topic around which a community would form. So, other than ego, why have I long wanted to launch a forum? There are a lot of reasons, but I think a lot of them come back to some of the overarching guiding principles of Da Blog (and MorganWick.com) as a whole. The forum, as I see it, is intended to be a logical extension of Da Blog as a whole, where people willing to think can engage in the sort of in-depth analysis of various topics I try to engage in on Da Blog. One of the purposes I had for Da Blog was as a place where different viewpoints and interests could come together and discover each other, and thus have their horizons broadened. If the two subsites I have now catch on, people who come for my Sports subsite will be able to discover this webcomics thing that’s out there. (Not that they’ll find anything that necessarily appeals to them.)

Like Da Blog itself, the forum is about nothing in particular. No topic is off limits; you can talk about whatever you want to talk about, and I’ve tried to make sure there’s a forum about whatever there is you want to talk about. (There isn’t a Webcomics forum; any webcomics talk can go in the Comics forum.) With the forum, I’ve also tried to create a place for intelligent discussion of whatever topics people are talking about; there is a single Politics forum, and if I ever get the sense that one political persuasion or the other is not welcome there, I’ll split it into Liberal and Conservative forums, but the long-term goal will be to create a place where, as I have often said, liberal and conservative can come together and develop a newfound appreciation for the other persuasion. As such, I’ve tried to make the rules fairly lenient, hoping to encourage frank discussion.

Because of the way bbPress works, the same system powering the forums is also now powering the comment system. That means the following changes to how commenting works, as well as some things you need to know about how the forum works:

  • The forum rules also apply to comments. I’ve created a comment policy page that will serve as a brief introduction to the most pertinent rules for anyone who doesn’t go into the forum, but the forum rules will always supercede the comment policy in the event of an apparent conflict. Even so, people who do venture into the forum should check out the comment policy anyway, as it contains important clarifications on how the rules apply to comments.
  • There are actual user accounts now, as well as all sorts of cool stuff you associate with forums, like formatting and such. You can also comment the old way, but you won’t be allowed to use all the cool stuff.
  • Ding, dong, first-comment approval is dead! Both guests and logged-in users will have their first posts show up right away.

One other thing: I have made the difficult decision (followed by the difficult process) of downgrading WordPress to 3.2.1, whereas earlier I had upgraded it to 3.3.1. This is not something WordPress makes easy to do, as WordPress constantly bugs you about upgrading to the newest version and doesn’t maintain any old versions, but as I’ve said before, when you create something that relies so heavily on plugins you have to make sure those plugins continue to work with new versions or people will be slow to update to those new versions because they want their plugins to continue to work. The first applicable plugin for bbPress I saw in the directory, the plugin to give people formatting controls, doesn’t work with WordPress 3.3, and its proprietor is already showing signs of falling off the face of the earth like the one who ran the plugin that powers the Sports and Webcomics subsites (which also now work properly, and even have more elegant logos as opposed to the old abominations). I don’t know how long I will continue to run an outdated version, but once all the other plugins are updated and I have the time I’ll not only update WordPress but overhaul the entire site and put the subsites on a firmer foundation.

Also, bbPress is kind of kludgy, so the forum will remain under construction for a while as I get used to it, and I can’t guarantee that all the functionality implied in the list above or the forum rules will actually be there (for example, right now you do have to be logged in to post on the forum). Still, I hope that even in this state, the forum will become a place that will raise the IQ of the Internet at least a few points, and that will help the site live up to its “Ideas every day” motto.

(Of course, maybe I’ll run into another reason why “Frank the Tank” shuttered his forum: the potential for it to become a massive time-suck!)

By Morgan Wick | Also posted in Internet adventures | Comments (0)

Update on the site

January 26, 2012 – 5:29 pm

There is no change in the status for the Sports and Webcomics subsites. I had an idea for how to fix it but quickly realized I didn’t know nearly enough about coding WordPress plugins to pull it off. For the time being, the way it works now works well enough for me, even though I can’t scroll through all webcomics posts. But the long-term solution for those sites will likely involve a major change in how MorganWick.com works, one that is likely to happen regardless of other factors.

You may notice the size of the post queue has gone down significantly. I had planned a major project that would take up all of February, and intended to introduce it Monday, but realized it would have completely monopolized my time. Perhaps if I had done it during the winter break as I originally intended it wouldn’t have been so bad, but as it is I’m struggling to keep up with my classes enough already. The timing was shaking up to be wrong as well, as, had the series that was planned to start Tuesday attracted a sizable audience to Da Blog, much of it would likely have been turned off.

(Longtime readers of Da Blog might remember my plans to write a book on the impact of the Internet on our lives, a book I wound up being too lazy to actually write. There have been times when I wish I had written it, but never more so than now; tomorrow’s post especially will essentially be some of what I would have written for the book.)

That series will still be four parts, and in fact I’d have liked to start it when I had planned, but if I’m going to do that, I’d like to have the forum up first. As such, I’ve removed the last vestiges of my failed attempt to launch the forum some years ago, and the site will go down again sometime tonight or Friday as I set up what hopefully will be the actual forum. Yes, we are that close, people.

By Morgan Wick | Comments (0)

Da Blog is back, baby!

January 19, 2012 – 6:54 pm

Well, I can’t say this was the happiest 36 hours Da Blog has ever had.

First, I found out I’d deleted the plugin I’d used when first setting up Da Blog to hide it from public view, and couldn’t find it again. Then I downloaded a plugin that just coughed up a 503 error whenever I went to a WordPress-powered page – even my admin section, meaning I wound up having to disable all my plugins in my database administration just to undo the damage. Then, after finding a working plugin, I upgraded to the latest version of WordPress, only to discover too late that the plugin I was counting on to pick up the slack for the old one didn’t actually work that way.

So now we’re back on the road, and the Sports and Webcomics subsites are running on the last developmental version of the old plugin until I can find a longer-term solution. There are a few quirks, most notably that the main pages of both sites are currently serving up all my posts instead of just the ones in those categories, but it should still be functional. If you see any other problems, give me a holler in the comments.

However, now I have a new problem: the power went out at our house this morning and might not be back until partway through the weekend. As such, I’m going to queue up a quick post to go out tomorrow to continue the streak and won’t be able to do any more work on Da Blog or the site until Monday at the latest (and I really hope it can be sooner). I know I promised a full-fledged preview of the conference championship games, but the MXSes will have to suffice: Ravens 21½-28½ Patriots, Giants 19¾-22¼ 49ers.

More to come on Monday, including – hopefully – the much-delayed launch of the forum.

By Morgan Wick | Also posted in About Me, NFL | Comments (0)

Programming Note

January 18, 2012 – 8:00 am

(From MS Paint Adventures: Homestuck. Click for full-sized blackout.)

I had heard of SOPA before today’s protests thereof, but I generally don’t like jumping to conclusions and following whatever people tell me I should think. Nonetheless, in light of current events, next week will see a special four-part series on the future of content. Some of this will likely be things that would have made my book on the Internet had I ever written it, and not all of it will be related to SOPA; there will also be things specific to this site’s main two topics, sports and webcomics.

Also, MorganWick.com will go down today sometime between 9 AM and noon PT, but not because of SOPA. I’m finally upgrading to WordPress 3.x series; seems someone finally got around to taking over the plugin that powers the Sports and Webcomics subsites.

Also, as I write this, it is 1:35 AM on the West Coast, and many webcomics have not updated yet, and I still feel confident saying that no other webcomic will protest SOPA as well as Homestuck, even if no one will get it later. (Although now that I’ve seen xkcd, I like its alt text too.)

By Morgan Wick | Also posted in Internet adventures, Politics, Webcomics | Tagged | Comments (0)

Getting serious about Da Blog and Da Streak

January 12, 2012 – 12:48 pm

How serious am I about continuing the post-every-day streak? I’m adopting a buffer for posts.

There’s another new segment on the sidebar that will show how many days in advance I have posts in the pipe. For the moment, I have posts through next week: a post to include the MXS for the divisional games Friday, then the College Football Rankings, another sports graphics roundup, a quick observation, and at some point, an OOTS post, plus a full-fledged preview of the conference championship games. I intend to have posts going by the end of this month that will last me all of next month, and there will be a post to introduce that project on the 23rd, continuing the streak another day. And, on top of that, I hope to finally launch the forum by then, admittedly a lofty goal, but potentially bumping one of next week’s posts to the week after that.

Because I’m using the countdown script, the sidebar will include weekends and will be set for the day after the last post I have in the buffer so the day count will be accurate. For the most part, ignore the actual time except in terms of how much time I might have in the day to actually continue the streak.

By Morgan Wick | Comments (0)

It’s the MorganWick.com National Championship Pregame Show!

January 9, 2012 – 7:27 pm

I’m frantically running around trying to make sure I have classes for the coming quarter (as in, the quarter that’s almost a week old already), so I only have one thing to say about the national championship game, which I won’t be watching.

The MXS for the game is Alabama 21¾-19¾. No, I have no idea why Alabama is favored when LSU won the first game on Alabama’s home turf and is playing closer to home.

Final college football rankings coming Tuesday, hopefully, though I wouldn’t bet on it.

By Morgan Wick | Also posted in About Me, College Football, College Football Rankings | Comments (0)

Yes, school is starting and I’m trying to continue this streak. I’m well aware of the trouble I could be getting myself into.

January 5, 2012 – 11:14 pm

You may have noticed I’ve been posting some fairly empty and pointless webcomic reviews recently, on comics I don’t normally read, let alone review. I’ve been trying to build up a new streak of consecutive weekdays with a post, because I have some plans in the fairly near future that could help that streak continue indefinitely.

Tomorrow, I will put up one more fairly empty webcomic review. Monday, I will have the first in what could be a week’s worth of more valuable posts for you all: my annual Pro Football Hall of Fame prediction post.

Yes, I know this is probably the ultimate in empty posts, continuing the streak with a post outlining how I’m going to continue the streak. I probably could have just put it up on Twitter, but then I wouldn’t have been able to use it to continue the streak. I just blew your mind, didn’t you?

By Morgan Wick | Comments (0)

We gon’ party like it’s your blog-day.

December 22, 2011 – 4:16 pm

Boy, has it been a wild, up-and-down Year Five in the history of Da Blog. One year ago at this time, Da Blog had hit a low point, with me writing the annual blog-day post in similar conditions to when I wrote the first post in the history of Da Blog – the last time I will probably ever write a post in such conditions. I had just finished the least productive year in the history of Da Blog, one in which I failed to crack 100 posts, thanks in large part to a decision to scale back posting to focus on schoolwork.

That wasn’t entirely successful. The winter quarter was marred by the Bracket Ladder project, then the spring quarter was marred by Mom getting talked into something that proved to be bad for my schoolwork but fantastic for Da Blog: an internet connection for our home. That sequence of events convinced me that the best thing to do for Da Blog was to refocus on it and try to recover the posting frequency that characterized late Year Two and early Year Three.

However, things went back down again for Da Blog over the summer, as I only managed to get a fraction of what I intended done, thanks in large part to getting derailed by another project. Then the school year hit and I stupidly added new football projects (the SEFL and NFL Schedule), resulting in a miserable end of November and early December as my laptop stopped working and I struggled with a late blitz to actually pass both of my classes for once… a quest that ultimately proved successful. (And, of course, all that was wrapped around the move to a new house.)

Now, at the end of the year, I feel like Da Blog is very much on its way back up. On Tuesday I posted on the 100 Greatest Movies Project for the first time in a long time – and I tried to time it so that it went up shortly after the SNF Flex Schedule Watch post, trying to nab that traffic influx. I also raised a question there that could help accelerate getting it done one way or the other. I’ve also been working on trying to further other projects to supplement everything the site already has going on. MorganWick.com is not that different than it was when it launched back in 2009. I’m trying to break it out of that inertia.

More to the point, I feel like I’ve been pointed in a direction that promises to break me out of my inertia. A number of events have taken place in recent weeks and months that could do much to turn my life around. I feel like late 2011 may prove to be a turning point in my life, one that focuses me on the track that will take me to where I want to go, and 2012 will tell the story of how I get there. Da Blog had about 140 posts over the past year, but nearly 100 of them have come in the second half of the year. Passing my classes may provide me with needed money, which may resolve a problem that was fast approaching in June: my Hostmonster account expires then, and if I couldn’t come up with the money (over a hundred dollars) to renew it, I’d have to move the site to Freehostia or worse. I’m not out of the woods yet, but I feel like I have some breathing room.

I promised two site upheavals back in August, neither of which has happened. The web design course didn’t teach me anything that I felt I could apply to the site; as a beginner’s class, the stuff it taught was either stuff I already knew or that I didn’t feel was applicable to a personal site like mine. I gave the design of this site a lot of thought when I created it, so in retrospect there wasn’t much that I needed to improve on. The first one I intended to do, though, I intend to get done before the end of the year.

I feel good about Year Six on Da Blog. I’ve felt good about Da Blog before, but I have a really good feeling that this is going to be the year we turn the corner. And I intend to hit the ground running with it right after Christmas.

By Morgan Wick | Also posted in About Me | Comments (0)

Invoking the Da Blog Twenty-Fifth Amendment

December 20, 2011 – 5:00 pm

As this post goes live, I will be going unconscious.

About an hour later, I will come to, and my mouth will feel like utter crap and will continue to feel that way for most of the rest of the week after I get my wisdom teeth removed.

As a result, expect posting to be rather light for the rest of the week. I have already pre-written and scheduled the annual Blog-day post for this Thursday, and have attempted to back-load several other posts, but don’t be surprised if that and the NFL Schedule post are the only posts you get until maybe right before Christmas, if that.

By Morgan Wick | Also posted in About Me | Comments (0)