As we work through bugs associated with CTH 2.0 launch, consider this a thread to provide information, report user issues, ideas and concerns. Please read the information provided below as it might answer many questions in advance.
Again, my sincere apologies for any site disruption and/or user issues you may have encountered or might be continuing to encounter as we level the ship.
The majority of major site issues have been reconciled over the past 36 hrs. CTH 2.0 is flying even and stable.
The DNS issues are resolved, and all inbound links to TheConservativeTreehouse.Com should now be landing on the correct and most recent homepage. There was an issue with dual cache conflict between our new server host and a mid-way cache service intended to assist with the overall site demand. That was causing older pages to propagate upon user entry. That problem has been resolved.
Given the short time-window we were operating with; and considering the objective of Big Tech Automattic to disrupt an ongoing conversation adverse to their interests; we succeeded in keeping the CTH community voice in the fight. Trust me, this was no small effort to achieve and is cause for much appreciation and celebration in the big picture.
The rebel alliance is alive, well and we have made new ‘rag tag’ misfit friends. Your support was/is critical in achieving that objective. We are humbled and thankful.
Now that we have an essentially fully-functioning architecture in place, we are able to start a slow and methodical process to enhance the features most important to our community.
Each feature must be installed, applied and evaluated for downstream issues. It is a painstaking process and takes a little time to ensure we don’t attach a feature that creates an imbalance or impact upon the essential functions of the site.
CTH is modeled on an eleven year-old platform theme. It is reliable, but it is also clunky, heavy and not as streamline as modern tech can provide. As described, CTH is a heavy data-tank on a highway with the ability to collapse the road. We need to modernize and get faster while retaining the depth and purposeful mission priority.
To the details:
♦ 50% of site traffic comes from desktop/laptop computer use, and 50% comes from mobile devices (phones, pads etc). This is one of the issues with our older theme still in place, and a team is working on it right now. When CTH first launched mobile platforms were in their infancy, in the modern era mobile devices are now the norm.
We need to change our theme platform to be responsive to the type of device you are using making it easier to navigate the site from phones and iPad type devices. The engineers are working on a proposal, and a test site is experimenting. The good news is our site content is not complex and the modernization should not be too difficult. In essence, CTH presents itself differently, more user friendly, depending on the type of device you are using.
♦ One of our priorities right now is establishing an email notification system where you can subscribe to automatic notifications of new posts etc. As with almost all systems of this type (there are many) it involves the use of a third party email transmission process. Y’all are aware that privacy is a CTH priority, so we are being very careful about vetting the service and setting up this notification system to protect CTH users.
CTH does not compile user information, does not engage in the manufacture of processes that assemble lists of users or any user data. We are working to ensure we do not end up creating an external list of subscribers that would be vulnerable to exploitation. Your privacy in all matters related to CTH engagement is my priority.
♦ Next, we are working on a return of the “like comments” feature in some manner or form. The issue with a like feature is a direct all-time link between the user engagement and the host server. In essence, to have a “like feature” there is a continual feed every millisecond attached to the server. That is ok, but as with all things in tech world can create a draw -own of site performance given the scale of our assembly.
Don’t worry about “likes” being off-the-table, they are not. This function is actually important to me, and we will restore them because that engagement is actually a precursor to something else, something unique, that I want to see on the site. A sidebar on the page drawing attention to the top ten highest-rated comments in a real time feed. You click on the user name, or perhaps the avatar, and it takes you to the comment.
♦ Another new feature I want to execute is a “most liked articles” widget. Similar to most liked comments, this would be a real-time propagated graphic showing the articles that users are most following or reading on other sites. Instead of me aggregating the information and/or directing attention to interesting external articles, this awesome community of smart commentators can do that themselves.
In essence, you share links to important external articles or content in the comments, and the top five articles (as clicked/read by commentators) automatically shows up in this sidebar feature: “Hot Topics and Articles.” [This is a little challenging, but the technology exists to accomplish it.]
♦ The team is also working on restoring a system that will allow embed pictures, tweets and videos to populate in the comments section. This is a process/system called “OEmbed Comments”. We needed to reconcile the scale of server use/demand by the commenting system before we could contemplate this feature.
Now that we have a dual library system in place for the 7.5 million comments, we can start the process of evaluating server capacity for OEmbed functions. It is not a matter of “if” this will happen, it is simply a matter of when those functions return.
When you write a comment it creates a metadata file. Each comment is a unique url. Your unique id is part of that metadata, your gravatar or avatar is part of that metadata, the content of your comment (what you write) is part of that metadata and any article links, citations, pictures, gifs, or tweets -each carrying a unique url- is part of that metadata.
The average number of lines of unique metadata in one comment is six to ten lines of code, regardless of the length of your comment. Your comment creates a mini data-file with its own unique id (the url). The library of pre-existing comments was 7.2 million. Multiply that by the lines of metadata and you get well over 40 million lines of code in the pre-existing comment file alone. (more)
Again, it is important to remember much of this server capacity exploration is in uncharted territory on a non-social-media platform. Fortunately, we have the ability to scale-up; our server hosts are just trying to figure out the actual scale we need.
Thanks again for bearing with us as we work through some technical issues, search for optimal solutions, and fiercely retain the original values and mission priority of the Treehouse. The Truth Has No Agenda
Myself and the incredibly hardworking site admins consider ourselves stewards to this community. YOU are what matters. Your ability to analyze, discuss and provide your comments on the subject matter is what makes CTH home. We will NEVER remove a commenting function from our website.
In fact, it is the crowd-sourcing work we have done as a community that has been the most thrilling and brilliant part of our work together. I will never lose that focus. The key to Treehouse 2.0 is recognizing we have built something within a system that wants to see us removed. By being proactive we have avoided some serious challenges and that makes us better stewards for our conversation.
Remember, YOU are the important part.
Without you CTH doesn’t really have a purpose. Individually we could stand outside shouting at trees with no impact; but together, sitting on the figurative cyber-porch, the conversation is rich with unique skill-sets, subject matter experts and life-long experiences that make discussion so much more valuable. Myself and the CTH admin team cherish the value you represent.
♦ Taking all of the above into consideration, if you are still experiencing issues with the site in general or specific terms, feel free to drop your feedback in the comments and we will review to see of we can intercept and/or correct any issues.
Love to all,
~ Sundance
Try to avoid a fight. Never be the first one to start a fight. However, when it does come down to the fighting, you need to fight like the third monkey on the ramp to Noah’s ark…
…and brother, it’s raining !
post times are showing up as EST for me, I’m in CST
On the daily presidential page, each time I go back to the first page of comments, the comments are not shown. This is the main thing I’m experiencing. And this is happening using andriod and windows ten.
Agree! Just posted about this myself.
There is so much wisdom from members we are losing out on by not seeing.
This is the main issue I have. Using Microsoft Edge on Android.
What I Love About The Conservative Treehouse
Truth and Knowledge is found here
Camaraderie with Friends
My Voice Is Heard and Felt and Matters
We always hear Silent Majority, but I have felt for DECADES and DECADES that we are not the Silent Majority, but the SILENCED Majority.
This is the year that I think every American fully understood this, if they didn’t already. We have been shut up, locked up, shut out, silenced, censored, forced into servitude to our own country. Our votes have been stolen, our rights have been stolen and we have been told to suck it up AGAIN and AGAIN and AGAIN! Embrace the Suck.
I Won’t EVER, and here I do not have to comply. I have NEVER been silenced here by CTH, only by WP’s machinations.
Don’t apologize Sundance… Appreciate all you are doing.
Patience is not a virtue for people posting online. They want it now and they want it to work as it did in the past. Sundance knows what he is doing. Again, patience is a virtue….
Test
The Comments section under each thread are pretty worthless. For this topic it says it has 475 comments. On the current page it shows 12 comments. I click “older comments” to go back a page and only 4 comments are showing. This actually takes away from any meaningful conversation. Don’t know why this new site can’t manage to hold on to ALL the comments that have been posted.
Great job, love the tree house, we need you now more than ever especially during the next year, things are moving fast, again thanks to all who keep this moving forward
Danang66
On some articles, if I click the “older comments” link, they all go away except for one or two. It didn’t do it for this thread, but it’s happened every time before. I’m not sure what the difference is.
I can’t seem to save an CTH icon to my desktop screen without the icon always opening the site back up to the page it was on when creating/saving the icon. Others have not had the same problem. Had the same experience with the OANN site, got tired of it, removed it and no longer visit it. Just saying…
older comments still not viewable unless new comment added to thread.
Here is my experience.
I click on an article and it reads 597 comments. I click “older comments” and the new page reads 475 comments but only 3 are showing..repeat, and 371 comments and only 2 showing…repeat and 277 comments and 1 showing…repeat and no comments at all.
Also, throughout this process, no “newer comments” link ever appears.
Refresh brings up the same flawed count/comments. In order to get back to the last page of 597 comments, I need to go back to the home page, and Re click the article.
My platform is a newer ipad. I’ve tried Safari and Brave browsers, with my VPN on or off. No difference. The same behavior either way.
Hope this info is helpful.
FWIW, I am not having that experience on my iPad Pro 10.5″ (model MQDW2LL/A) running iOS 14.2 and Brave 1.21.
Everything appears to run similar to the desktop appearance as on my MacBook Pro laptop running OS X 11.01 (Big Sur) and Brave browser [Version 1.17.75 Chromium: 87.0.4280.88 (Official Build) (x86_64)]
Safari browser on both iPad and Laptop is also displaying CTH “normally”, per Sundance’s descriptions.
My previous issues with CTH 2.0 all had disappeared by Thursday evening. Navigation seems to be working normally. I seriously miss the “Likes” and especially the ability to list and respond replies to my comments, as was possible in CTH 1.0. But SD & Team will figure something out so I am patient.
My system is an iMac using macOS Big Sur 11.0.1. I’ve used three (3) different browsers, getting the same results. All are current versions: Safari 14.0.1, Firefox 83.0, and Tor 10.0.5. I’ve variously cleared cookies and caches, re-started my system and powered it down.
The issues I encounter are:
1) It appears there is no way to logon to CTH without making a comment.
2) There’s a navigation of the site issue. Without logging on, I’ll view comments. Then, click on older comments. Instead of returning a full page of them, only three (3) are displayed. If I continue to click on older comments, two comments are and then one is displayed. Clicking again and only the Leave a Reply screen is displayed.
If I make a comment, the comment and the awaiting moderation notation are displayed. Later, when I return to the site, I’m unable to determine whether the comment went through because of the navigation.
This is why this comment might be viewed as a repeat.
Just made a comment and it disappeared.
Keep up the good work.
Stormy—I agree. Considering that there are millions of people wanting to click on the Treehouse and comment and almost everyone that does, has a different setup, I imagine it is quite a task. Lets all be patient –Sundance will get all the bugs out.
test. 1st comment since the changeover, fingers x’d. fwiw i’m having a mix of similiar issues as a lot of previous commenters. primarily using latest safari on a macbook running catalina. have tried other browsers, chrome and firefox with same results. been a loyal treehouse follower on twitter for years so i’m always alerted the instant theres a new post anyway, so i’m good.
My comments usually show up, but not every time. After I submit I am thrown back to a single comment on the thread. If I hit the home page button it usually refreshes all the comments, but not always.
The feature I miss most is the “like” button. It is a good way to follow and support fellow treepers.
No isues with the site on my desktop (Microsoft OS, Foxfire browser). But major issue on my Kindle and Iphone – can only see one page of comments, can’t look at “older comments”.
Just an update for you.
Thanks for CTH.
@Ugly Cuss
Try selecting the Save my name… checkbox right above the Post Comment button before you make a comment.
This seems to be allowing users across all devices to navigate and view comments as usual.
Thanks for the suggestion, but it didn’t solve the problem on my iPad. I’ll try doing it again. ?
Test
Test
Is there a way to be notified that a “reply” to my comment is posted ?
Not currently.
The WP account summary (the menu at top right that used to show all your likes, replies, comments, etc.) and email notifications were some of the features left behind when the WP platform forced CTH out.
I know the email notifications are a priority on their radar.
I’m not sure if they have any plans to implement any kind of account comment summary feature like WP had. I do hope so though.
On iPad:
Previously could comment, but now it just disappears when I hit post comment.
Tried checking Save my name… but that is not working either.
Thanks for everyone’s efforts to try and fix things.
On PC i’ve intermittently had this issue.
The workaround solution, for me anyway, has been to go back to the CTH main page, press control+f5 (force reload, different from regular f5 refresh) and then come back to the article in question.
After doing that all comments (including my own which sometimes initially behave as you describe) show up.
Not sure how you could accomplish this on an iPad or phone.
I think you’re making GREAT progress. i was going to comment that every time I went to “older comments” I could only get one at a time, but this morning, that’s been fixed!
The Presidential Thread is not working for the past two days. I get some of the comments, and often I get one on a page and then this “Leave a Reply” box. But, for instance, just now, it says 459 comments, so that should go on for several pages. I am not getting that.
I clear my cache and cookies and still not right.
I will be patient, as I was for the first few days, as I want this to be right again. This is the ONLY site I trust for news and I love to read the comments from primarily very astute commenters! Thank you all for keeping me sane …
Ellen Heffes and other follow TREEPERS ,
With the issue of not seeing older comments.
Another Treeper found a solution that appears to work.
When making a comment, check the box “Save my name, email, and website in this browser window for the next time I comment”
That action appears to fix the issues of comment pagination, and forward and backward comment movement.
Just passing along information gained here, because I always learn something from the comments.
Sundance etal Thank you for keeping this Refuge, and community of Treepers going. ??
The Treeper was CovfefeBerserker,
Getting old , had to go back on this thread to find the comments on the previous page.??
I’m pleased CTH is back up and running, have no complaints, just admiration for Sundance’s talents and virtues, among which resilience shines forth.
The question I have is the timing of Word Press’s attempt at repression of the CTH phenomenon – i.e., perfectly timed to hinder communications among those following the alternative narrative during the rollout of the fake election coup. Was this item 23 on the election steal checklist? Is there any way to link this effort back to a common puppeteer? Any Word Press insiders who witnessed the decision and implementation? who are closet Treepsters who can shed any light? Or Sundance, did you or your crew pick up any clues through your dealings with them?
Unless and until the backbone of the Deep State is broken, they will remain a mortal threat to our republic.
The backbone you seek is called ‘the public sector labor union’.
Since democrats like JFK, who was selected by the corrupt ‘bosses’ running chicago, decided to IGNORE FDR and allowed for federal public sector labor unions to exist, the words of FDR as now completely exposed.
Public sector labor unions are NOW the enemy of the American people.
First we must REVOKE the first exec order JFK released that allowed for their creation. It will take a few years to let the current contracts to expire. Then it will take even more time to ‘clean out the stables’ of corruptocrats at all levels!
It will take a long ugly slog to eliminate 60 years of built up corruption.
1 – Given the time available to you the transition appears to have been handled about as well as anyone could have. Congratulations!
2 – however.. some of the things you’ve said raise concerns. Specifically your comments about the duration of various processes, the number of urls (particularly with respect to comments) and the difficulty you had in getting comments to work properly all seem out of step with current technology.
3 – since you now have the thing working you have time to make more considered choices for a redesign. Please take that time and prototype what you are doing. Specifically please consider at least the options below:
3.1 – do not contract for third party email management. In the end the loss of control will bite you where it hurts. Instead, migrate to a tech that offers email now and either has now or credibly promises push notifications (progressive web apps) later.
3.2 look at using tools intended for high volume websites. These are more difficult to set up and manage, but offer lower long term costs and greater flexibility.
4.0 in your place I’d be looking at drupal on nginx – and you may not have noticed but I did send you an offer to implement a version of your site using that tech which you could then place on almost any major content delivery network.
Testing commenting.
Bonus material, the three rules of the Trumpening:
1) Always trust Trump
2) Never bet against Trump
3) Don’t get tired of winning
How do I get released from moderation?
Big rally today in Georgia!
As some others have noted, when you go to a page and it says something like “625 Responses to Site Updates, CTH 2.0 Priorities, and User Experience Feedback Requests” (as it just did for this one), and then you click on “Older Comments”, it will bring up a batch of the older comments but now it will say something like “475 Responses to …”. Then you click on “Older Comments” again and the number decreases again, and click on it again and there might only be 3 comments it brings up, and click on it again and you see the new comment box and no older comments at all. Instead of being able to scroll through all 625 that it originally said were there, you only get to see a small portion of them. That needs to be fixed. It kind of kills the discussion when you can’t see what everyone is saying.
Doug43,
Short answer,
When making a comment, check the box “Save my name, email, and website in this browser window for the next time I comment”
That action appears to fix the issues of comment pagination, and forward and backward comment movement.
Since many Treepers are experiencing this issue, if we could pass this information on the new page of comments to get pagination back. Would help the community.
Sorry for posting this, gave this information upthread a little, but after you posted.
Ninja7 – Thanks much. I’ll do that in future. (No Like button yet.)
Am testing again to see older comments
Clicking on a link within a Comment is now opening that site in the same window, taking you out of CTH. Previously it would automatically open in a new window.
Awesome place
t
Thanks for all the hard work so far. I am also having problems seeing and posting comments. I can view older comments but there is no navigation to newer ones. Seems this is common so my patient hat is on.
Thanks again Sundance and crew.
twitter and youtube links do not post properly on comments 🙁
Test to see if Sundance’s suggestion work for me.
Yes!! Save the name tick allows me to see previous comments
Test for the “save my name”’suggestion
Test
Giving the ole comment feature try.
Just tried suggestion SD posted on another thread re mobile users who can’t scroll back and see previous pages of older posts …
when making your next comment click save name, email
It works! ?
Oh, Sundance, I have missed CTH so very much for so many days now! Thanks to heaven you are back again! I have no idea how cth was hidden and unreachable for so long, especially post election week, I never assumed it was to blame on tech situation, just assumed it was a sabotage, not an internal maintenance issue, but it feels so good to be back at home.
Still cannot find a donate button. Welcome back!
Everything was working fine except for scrolling thru comments now it no longer works. Only seeing three comments/page and none of mine.
I have an I Mac computer and I use Safari as my browser – I have not received any of the Treehouse mailers since Nov. 30 – What do I do to get you to send me the Treehouse just like before?
Have to save both tablet and laptop.
enabling comments for today
Just testing formatting… manual vs the little icons. Also seeing if pic shows up, rather than just a link:
<bold>manual bold</bold>
auto bold
<i>manual italics</i>
auto italics
Hmm… okay, mixed results, but bold and italics are easier now. And pics work, yay! 🙂
Sundance and team, a solution to the wordwrap break issue – source code lines 239/40
It’s a hard to spot coding error at lines 239/40: .#wpdcom
A period (.) has been placed before the #wpdcom in error
Change:
.#wpdcom .wpd-comment-text { word-break: normal;}
To:
#wpdcom .wpd-comment-text {word-break: normal !important;}
I’ve tested it on my machine, and it works.
Thank you for making the font darker. Most appreciated! It still could be a bit bigger or a different script , like before, that is not so squished together.
I also appreciate that you have contained the margins, so I no longer have to scroll sideways on my iPad. Again, many thanks!
But now a new request please:
Is it possible to make the active comment box a bit wider, while you are typing into it? On my iPad it is showing up as only about 1 inch wide… like a little ribbon running down the left side of the screen.
Widening this active typing area would make it easier to see what I’m typing.
Thanks to all for all your hard work on making CTH better!!!
I’ve tested the word-break issue again on my own site, and this works:
Line 241-243:
Change
.#wpdcom .wpd-comment-text { word-break: normal;}
To
pre {
word-break: break-word;
}
#wpdcom .wpd-comment-text {word-break: normal !important;}
Here’s the test using a post from today:
Log in