A funny thing happened on the way to the Recent List Wednesday. KosAbility's diarist Clytemnestra wrote a wonderful, informative diary entitled Bad Blood and published it through the group's queue at 3 MT. I went looking for it at 3:08 and couldn't find it on the Recent List. I did find it through the group, so I sent this message to Tech Support:
http://www.dailykos.com/...
This diary posted 23 minutes ago but doesn't show on the recent list. HALP!
Thanks,
Nurse Kelley
I got the following reply from Tech:
Looks like it was posted with a pretty old story draft, and for performance reasons, sadly the recent list only looks 50,000 or so stories back to build the recent list.
My response:
Let me make sure I understand. If I post an original draft, either through my blog or through a group, it won't show on the recent list if it's "old"? If that's the case, please define old for me.
Here is Tech Support's definition of "old":
In this case, [Clytemnestra] published a draft from back in April. A quick check shows that old drafts from as recently as around September 15th or 16th, 2011 would have been fine.
Unfortunately there are strong performance considerations for limiting the recent list to the last 50,000 or so stories. As we move more stuff over from perl to rails, we'll hopefully have a chance to revisit this, but I can't make any firm promises there.
Perls to rails? Are we back to
that again?
HAHAHAHAHAHA!
Thank God for elfling, who provided the translation:
So the problem is that she used a diary id that was created almost a year ago, and the way the recent diaries page works, it can't find diaries with ids that are that old.
BOTTOM LINE: When you create a diary draft, it is assigned an id by the system. If you want to post an older draft, copy the contents into a new draft so it has a current id number and your perls of wisdom won't go off the rails.
I'm still looking for that elusive definition of old. It may be hiding with the alleged Bug Repair™ we were promised after triciawyse's inadvertent banning. (Hugggs, paradise50.)
UPDATE from elfling:
As a practical matter, if your draft is more than two months old, copy and paste it into a new shell and you should be good.
This seems like a good time to raise hell about discuss the entire process of writing diaries. The draft function is a constant source of frustration, one area where DK3 was, in my opinion, far superior:
TITLE: When you tab to the title section, "untitled diary" should be automatically highlighted so you don't have to delete "untitled diary" before entering your text.
LINKS: Same complaint - when you open the link function, http:/ should be automatically highlighted. Most people add links by snatching the url and pasting it into the link function, so stopping to highlight or delete http:/ is a PITA. (Don't yell at Nurse Kelley! I know it's http:double backslash, my draft shows double backslash in both places, but this futhermucking program won't do what I want it to do!)
TAGS: This dang program is persnickety about allowing tags to be entered or edited. If you're lucky enough to put in tags, the edit function goes immediately to an error message. If a diary is in a group queue, not even the blog admin can see the tags used until the diary has been posted. Except, of course, when it does work.
FUNCTION BUTTONS: It irritates the crap out of me to use, say, the Italic button and have the entire bleeping diary text get highlighted. Sure, it's just a click to unhighlight everything, but it's inexcusable. It makes me tired, it makes me cuss, and it makes me write cranky diaries.
POLL FUNCTION: It don't work fer shit. 'Nuff said.
SAVE AND PREVIEW: Here's what I know about this button. All over the world, Kossacks who are lazy or optimistic and type right into the draft form (like me) don't push this button until we line up our fetishes, cross our fingers, toss back a shot of bourbon, make the sign of the cross, and hit our knees. I'm thinking it should work a little better than that.
EDIT: I've saved this one for you, Cranky Users. Let 'em have it! USE ALL CAPS! Say fuck and shit and brassiere!
Oh - one two more complaints, since I have the floor: During beta testing and the early post-launch days, unstable servers made loaded pages jump all over the place. Why is that happening again? Every page I load doesn't settle until a slow count of three, and the search functions are even slower. We've got elections coming up, folks, and I smell instability. That's a bad, bad thing - isn't it, Markos?
Finally, what's wrong with the Share button? It's gone from working just fine, to being as hinky as my ex, to not working at all. I bring a lot of traffic to Daily Kos by using the Share button to post links on social media. People who don't regularly come here have learned to recognize certain banners next to links and automatically click the link because they know they'll be going to the latest KosAbility diary, for example, or any other group with a banner. The banners stopped transferring when the function got hinky recently, and today the Share button doesn't work at all.
That makes me cranky!
WHERE TO TURN: LINKS
☀ For more stuff sort of like this, the Cranky Users group.
☀ For lots of official detail about the site and its workings, the DK4 FAQ (frequently-asked questions). The main Daily Kos FAQ is still here.
☀ For help with bugs and technical problems, the fabulous new HELP DESK! You can search for others who have already reported the same issue, post the issue yourself, submit it privately, or even answer questions posted by other users. And, you can check out the "knowledge base" for information both general and specific.
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☀ For immediate catharsis, complain in a Cranky Users thread. These threads are regularly scanned by kos and developers, but it's not a guaranteed way to bring an issue to the attention of these folks. But sometimes you just need some sympathy from other cranky people! (And sometimes, other cranky people have advice that can help you.)
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