Sometimes I'm not sure. :)
But I've spent two and a half hours doing it, this morning. Answering email and PMs. Making supporting comments for authors who are having a crisis of confidence. Straightening out problems with site organization. Organizing new content. Welcoming new members and new authors. It adds up.
Oh, and finishing off a bit of cleaning up from yesterday's phish hunt.
Sometimes I forget to do somethings but usually I get around to them in a reasonable time if not always ASAP.
On another front, Piper and I are still working on getting new servers set up to increase the reliability and serviceability of all the sites we manage for ourselves, other people in this community and the legacy sites we inherited from Bob Arnold that are in other online communities. That took a few hours yesterday and Piper is working on it today, too.
Plus, I need to do some real thinking about future upgrades to our software here. Drupal 6 is still not a perfect upgrade path from Drupal 5 to my way of thinking and Drupal 7 seems to be stalled out on too many demands and too much optimism about what an open source project can do with unpaid volunteer programmers. And Drupal 8 looks stillborn. WTF?
Drupal is still the best CMS platform for multi-diimensional categorization of large sites without paying for customized programming or proprietary software. But the upgrade after this one, namely Drupal 7, is scaring me. It doesn't work and does not seem likely to be workable soon and is not a smooth upgrade in any case, if someone can make it work.
Upgrading from Drupal 5 (our current system) to Drupal 6 is not going to be a cakewalk. The prize will be greater security and scaleability but the cost will be dozens of hours for me and for Piper and perhaps the loss of some beloved features that are unsupportable after the upgrade. I think we have to upgrade since no one is now doing security bug fixes for Drupal 5 but after the move to Drupal 6, I will have to spend some time researching what to do next.
We have choices, none of which are pleasing. Efiction is multi-dimensional but does not have the maturity of features or breadth of community support that Drupal has. We could fork EFiction but that's a nightmare having a migraine that I do not want to wake up.
Wordpress can be made multi-dimensional with plugins but it's the biggest target for spammers and hackers of any CMS/Blogging platform out there. Joomla is cranky and not fully multi-dimensional even with plugins. Postnuke and the other *Nuke platforms have disintegrated into the bushes of endless forking that caused me to abandon Postnuke in the first place. Wikis are too slow.
Every other choice has even larger drawbacks. And abandoning Drupal carries with it the burden of migrating all our data to sometimes wildly different storage schemes.
Ay, me. So it's probably move to Drupal 6 as soon as the new servers are stable then cross fingers and hope that Drupal 7 is made to come out reasonably usable in a year or two. After that, who knows? Maybe aliens will arrive with some wondrous new software and bring the Singularity. Eh, it could happen. :)
Hugs,
Erin
P.S. Oh, and when I get time, I write. I hope to post a new chapter of The Pregnant Boy later today. :) -- Erin
Comments
Woah... that's much
Woah... that's much work...
Thank you so much for your work for this awesome site!
*hugs*
Beyogi
Most CMS plaforms I've
Most CMS plaforms I've worked with are a headache. Good luck on the upgrades.
Have a delightfully devious day,
Okay...
Being a non-techie, I really have no idea what you just said. I do, however wish to thank you for your efforts.
Nancy Cole
"You may be what you resolve to be."
T.J. Jackson
Ditto
Didn't understand a fraction of what Erin described but it sounds immensly complicated and time consuming. I can only thank you Erin for the effort you put in I do realise it must amount to a lot.
Thanks and hugs.
XZXX.
Beverly.
Uh?
And another who goes "you what?" but is source of one of the e-mails that Erin sorted today...Ta.
Yeah, what she said!
I also think you deserve a huge "Thank you!" I never realized how much work this site could be. I wish I could be of help, but I'm pretty use4less on the confusers. I write, edit and E-mail. Much more than that, aqnd my brain just gives up.
I'm also looking forwaqrd to more "Pregnant Boy", and hope we get some answers to the many questions.
Again, Thanks. You make my world so much better.
Wren
pregnant boy
And more questions for the answers!
Personally, I'm loving the way she's leading us along with this one.
Abigail Drew.
Thank you
RAMI
Dear Erin
Thank you for all you do.
I got lost after the first 4 paragraphs. But I do know that whatever you said about Dupral 1 ...... 7 must be important, but I clueless.
Thank again.
RAMI
RAMI
Woah...
Don't know how you manage all that...
Kudos all round
Di
So, what does it say about me that I understood every word?
From looking at all the various 'story sites' out there, it seems like what needs to be created is a specific CMS system that's oriented towards reading. Most sites aren't. They're oriented towards _content_. Bibliographies, auto-build indexes, nightly build search databases, better author/subject linking, and so forth are what is needed. I haven't looked at EFiction, but I'll try to do that in the next two days. I REALLY need some downtime soon.
One of the _biggest_ issues I've seen with all of the sites is that they almost all require some sort of manual intervention in order to put up content. If the site is relatively autonomous (not continually under surveillance) it can be hours or days between content posts. If it's not, then the hoster doesn't get a life. (Been there, done that, got the straitjacket) Content review should only be necessary for brand new authors, or authors known to skirt the edge of inflammatory content.
Now, keep in mind that WordPress isn't actually any more vulnerable than Joomla, Drupal, or any other CMS system - it just has a lot more people contributing plugins to it. Those plugins are often the vulnerable points. If it's one person working with the site, you can even lock it down so that if someone breaks in, they won't be able to do much at all - not even reach the backups. (Lost count of people trying to crack into my systems)
I tried Drupal, personally, and found that it was a huge kludge that didn't have proper documentation, support, or options. It looked _great_, until I found you couldn't actually use it well unless you _were_ a programmer; at which point you might as well roll your own :)
Anyway - I agree that the current crop of CMS systems just don't seem to do the job; a proper CMS for the job would have all the basics, and then have a relatively simple plugin structure like WordPress so that people with basic skills could add onto it.
I'll get a life when it's proven and substantiated to be better than what I'm currently experiencing.
That's part of the problem
Piper and I could write a great CMS for fiction sites, probably starting from Efiction. But we need to bathe and eat and do other stuff in our lives as well as run all our websites. :)
Glad someone understood the problem, I was basically just thinking at the keyboard.
Hugs,
Erin
= Give everyone the benefit of the doubt because certainty is a fragile thing that can be shattered by one overlooked fact.
= Give everyone the benefit of the doubt because certainty is a fragile thing that can be shattered by one overlooked fact.
Computer software.
Around '80 when desk tops were coming out, I got pretty good with basic. 30 years later, things are so complex that I'm just lost most of the time. Thanks so much for your effort and kind service to us.
Mean while, I'll go back to hating IE9, wishing for IE8 and wondering why I did not buy a Mac when I had the chance.
:)
Gwendolyn
I hate IE as a general
I hate IE as a general rule...
Have a delightfully devious day,
Make that two someones.
Personally, I've been wondering where you're hiding the cloning machine.
Abigail Drew.
Thanks & KUDOS
I just spent so time PM ing Erin thanking her for what she does and some of the people who do negative comments , But anyway THANK YOU ERIN AND STAFF FOR THIS GREAT SITE that I and others enjoy some much THANK YOU FOR YOUR TIME -- HUGS RICHIE2
Thanks Erin
For all you do for all of us.
Fixing the plane while it's in the air
I truly emphasize with you. Drupal is kind of like democracy... it's the worst available except when compared to all the others.
I am fortunate that my Drupal sites are small and get very little traffic. The learning curve is steep, and I don't have the patience I used to. And, Drupal being mostly a volunteer open source project, grows in fits and bounds, when folks have time from their day jobs.
It kind of reminds of the early bombers where they carried an engineer on the crew. His job was to fix things that went wrong while the plane was in the air. I suspect that BC is a lot like that. (I'm sure that others with a lot more historical knowledge will correct me and/or fill in the gaps.)
It is my very humble opinion that BC is the absolutely best site of its kind on the web; due to your conscientious, gentle guidance.
I am one among others who are willing to assist in any way we can, should you wish it.
Keep the faith... this is one glass of water that is showing significant dents.
Best wishes,
Janet
Mistress of the Guild of Evil [Strawberry] Blonde Proofreaders
To be or not to be... ask Schrodinger's cat.
Janet
Mistress of the Guild of Evil [Strawberry] Blonde Proofreaders
To be or not to be... ask Schrodinger's cat.
What I do around here...
Thanks for all that you do for us.
May Your Light Forever Shine
May Your Light Forever Shine
I still don't understand
why people have to spoil the party. The original internet was a fun thing where everything was free and people helped each other. Why do some humans have to spoil it?
I too am appreciative of all the work you and Piper do for all us non-geeks. Very many thanks and hugs.
Angharad
Angharad
*chortle*
The original internet was devoted to research for the US Department of Defense, and interlinking universities and businesses working on such.
Mind you, when they first really opened up the internet, I was there. I got to watch all the 'l33t' crap that's now used for texting develop on IRC, then MUDs. :)
I'll get a life when it's proven and substantiated to be better than what I'm currently experiencing.
Why do some humans have to spoil it?
Because they are stupid dirty humans.
The only good human is our slave, I mean, human assistant.
Cats should rule the world. We try our best.
Bonzi
(Me too. Izzy)
I had it all wrong
For some reason I got the impression that you sat in a room surrounded by dozens of computer monitors and in a Picard-like voice you said "Computer, run big closet"
K.T. Leone
My fiction feels more real than reality
Katie Leone (Katie-Leone.com)
Writing is what you do when you put pen to paper, being an author is what you do when you bring words to life
CMS's
I manage several CMS based sites myself, but unfortunately I can't give you any useful suggestions. I am a web developer by trade, but my experience is Windows based. We tried out several different solutions before adopting the platform we currently use at work, so I know how frustrating it can be to come up with the right choice. We eventually settled on the Umbraco CMS package, which I find to be exceedingly flexible, but this is Windows/.net only and won't run under Apache/Mono so is probably no good to you as I suspect you have Unix/Linux based servers.
Needless to say, your efforts and the others of your admin team are much appreciated.
D.L.
WS.Net vs LAMP
Not to come down on what you do but as small operator, I wouldn't run a windows server for a mission critical operation if the hosting company paid me $500 a month. Partly because a lot of that $500 would be taken up paying for licenses to use the stuff. :) Only big companies can afford the investment in time and resources to keep a windows server current, supplied with software, and safe.
Safety is an issue. Apache is bad enough, I've actually thought of switching to lightpd or Macserver. They aren't better, they are just smaller targets. Apache is the biggest target but windows server has legacy problems that make that no better than a wash.
But you're right about dotnet having a couple of good CMSs that I wish someone would port to LAMP.
Hugs,
Erin
= Give everyone the benefit of the doubt because certainty is a fragile thing that can be shattered by one overlooked fact.
= Give everyone the benefit of the doubt because certainty is a fragile thing that can be shattered by one overlooked fact.
I got a HUGE decrease in
I got a HUGE decrease in server load by placing nginx on my main hosting server.
I'll get a life when it's proven and substantiated to be better than what I'm currently experiencing.
it's been years -- like started when Fortran was new...
enough said???
I'll take a look at Drupal since of all the sites I've visited, this one is the most user freindly.
(of course it goes without saying that the reason goes beyond the software.... ie long hours on the part of those who keep the site working smoothly.... relatively and far better than so many others.)
No guarantees...
Haven't written code or worked with it for uhmmm.... well, a while now.
went off and read some of the material on 7 and didn't like what I saw.
will try to look through five and six and see where that leads me. Don't hold your breath.
Anesidora
Understood just enough
to make me dangerous. Seriously though, thanks for all of the work you do and giving me the chance to express my thoughts, dreams, desires and wishes.
Kerry
BTW great analysis of which CMS to avoid.
Which CMS to avoid...
Huh? How so? Well, I guess the *nukes are to be avoided in all their variations. Other than that I don't think she described anything other than what you can pretty well expect from any CMS solution you don't build and maintain yourself.
EDIT: And actually, I would not personally agree on avoiding the *nukes, some of them make a great bare-bones structure on which to build the rest of a DIY CMS.
Abigail Drew.
Brainstorming alternatives
I have investigated CMS software for a legal code system I wanted to build to keep up with the laws and the modifications of specific articles and the modifications of the modifications, etc. Though non would really satisfy my specific needs at that time.
So looking over my bookmarks, I found several that have not been mentioned here before, and that might be worth a look as an alternative to Drupal:
* SilverStripe
* Typo3
* XOOPS
Erin and Piper,
Thank you for all your hard work to provide us with this wonderfull resource called BCTS.
Other CMS's
TYPO3 and XOOPS are less CMSs than kits for building private CMSs.
I'm looking at SilverStripe now and from the buzzwords they are using, it's more of the same.
I don't want to do that much programming, though TYPO3 may have developed more and be more usable now.
XOOPS is a pain to install or was and kept telling me that I wasn't allowed to do the things I wanted to do.
Essentially, I'm running Drupal out of the box with a unique selection of addons and a minimum of custom code in the theme.
Nothing else comes close to that level of non-involvement on my part. :)
Hugs,
Erin
= Give everyone the benefit of the doubt because certainty is a fragile thing that can be shattered by one overlooked fact.
= Give everyone the benefit of the doubt because certainty is a fragile thing that can be shattered by one overlooked fact.
Avoid Silverstripe - unless you want real frustration
I have a production system running on SilverStripe 2.4. You would have to write major customization to get it to do what you have here. It does not like a very deep site tree. We localized the ecommerce module to $US and still had to track down "cheque", hardcoded everywhere.
Since it seems you would have to expend considerable effort to migrate to any newer version of Drupal, do you have any idea how much more would be involved to write your own CMS building off Efiction as a base? Then, assuming you DO want to eat and bathe, what would have to happen here and on other site to take some of the load off so you two could code?
Like you, just thinking at the keyboard.
Jaime
I'm really hesitant to tackle a big coding project
I've done those and they are much bigger and more difficult than one can imagine. Plus, there is the future trap--when it becomes necessary to update, maintain or rewrite code, guess who?
No, the real choices are probably Drupal or Wordpress. Efiction is just a thought and it does have some advantages but I spend two to six hours a day working on the site here. If I were coding someone else would have to do that -- and I would have to spend two to six hours a day checking to see it was done the way I want it done. :)
Hugs,
Erin
= Give everyone the benefit of the doubt because certainty is a fragile thing that can be shattered by one overlooked fact.
= Give everyone the benefit of the doubt because certainty is a fragile thing that can be shattered by one overlooked fact.
An English Translation
I can't wait until Erin releases this translated into English. I'm dying to see what she said.
Nancy Cole
P.S. Muchas Gracias, Seniorita Erin.
"You may be what you resolve to be."
T.J. Jackson
novel-length essay.
That would probably require a novel-length essay to be able to pull off... there's a lot of really complex stuff in there that'd take a fair bit of explanation to get it to make sense to someone without the background for it.
That's part of what bothers me about trying to help other people with their computers. They always want me to tell them what I did, and I try to give them as succinct, yet accurate, yet plain account of my actions as I can - NOT EASY!
Abigail Drew.
No Doubt this is So
Having found myself having to explain how the fire control system of an M-1 tank functions to a Marine sergeant, I can fully appreciate what you say.
Hoorah.
Nancy Cole
"You may be what you resolve to be."
T.J. Jackson
Hey I once resembled that!
Good Guy here, bad guy there, point open end at bad guy or anything else that moves just in case, go clicky click here, it goes bangedy bang there. Don't forget to turn it on here. Put fingers in both ears, get corporal to pull clicky thingy.
I think now they require at least a GED?