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.
Today, December 2nd, was our official eviction date as established by WordPress/Automattic two weeks ago. Considering the scale of moving 11 years worth of data (56,000 articles, massive media file, 7.2 million comment library), the tech team did a great job.
That said, we anticipated some issues, are encountering others, and we are carefully working through a checklist.
First, we wanted to migrate the data and site in the least disruptive way to the CTH community that provided continuity and familiarity.
Despite the tech issues with the disconnect from WP/Automattic servers to our own proprietary server system, that overarching goal was achieved. Now we are getting into the weeds.
First, some background so everyone can understand the big picture issues. Obviously WordPress/Automattic wanted us gone; however, in hindsight the unspoken purpose and motive behind our eviction is now making a lot more sense.
Based on insider information, there were two distinct issues that merged; sunlight upon them is against the interests of massive multi-billion dollar organizations, but at CTH the truth has no agenda, so here’s the inside explanation as it appears.
♦ Ideology – As they said in their notification to deplatform, the “content” of CTH was against the terms of WordPress/Automattic. This is not really a surprise as Big Tech looks for any obtuse or obscure reason to silence voices that are not in political alignment with their goals. The decision by WP/Automattic is not surprising even if they would never publicly admit it. Quite simply, this battle has been going on for years and now it is at an inflection point. Alternates to the grip of Big Tech are starting to emerge, slowly.
♦ Business – In addition to the ideological nature of the motive, there is another element which has gained significant clarity in the past few weeks. Our CTH community did something WP/Automattic never expected… we were too successful.
The scale of the CTH reader and commenting community literally was/is a rebel alliance reeking havoc inside a host network that didn’t like our voice. Simultaneously, we were chewing up massive amounts of their server space and capacity. This is very interesting.
According to insiders who have reached out and shared their opinion, what CTH evolved into is far more than a simple blogging community. Essentially the metaphor provided is this: “you took a blog platform and built a mini FaceBook social media enterprise within it.” The CTH community, our extended global family of ragtag misfits, was/is using CTH as a network of like-minded friends to share and discuss information.
You might say well, isn’t that what a blogging community is all about… and the answer eleven years ago was a simple: yes. However, our assembly became much, much, much larger than a simple community.
The scale of having up to 25,000 simultaneous users is way beyond a simple blogging platform. CTH became a social media enterprise. Discussions, information sharing, networking and contact with each-other is what social media was all about.
The FaceBook social media model is essentially operating in our site. That’s an awesome outcome, but one WP/Automattic did not expect. In essence CTH hijacked the platform to create a social network.
All of that engagement costs the host (WP/Automattic) server space and massive amounts of bandwidth. Despite my paying for their hosting services (business plan), we were essentially living cheap, almost rent free, inside their platform. Once we realized this was also an element of concern, some prior work by WP/Automattic to control CTH made sense.
There is an interesting conversation happening in the coffee shops of Big Tech about this issue… WordPress/Automattic can never admit the unique financial problem that CTH created for them.
The business model for WP/Automattic is to sell the potential outcome of exactly what we achieved. WP/Automattic pitches their business plan by saying you can build a blogging community and share your voice.
Well, we took them up on that offer ten years ago and we built the biggest community within their system; a massive community. We did exactly what the marketing people at WP/Automattic say is possible… except we did it bigger than they ever imagined. Our success at achieving the scale of community created a problem they can never admit.
If WordPress/Automattic were to be honest now about the financial impact of users -like CTH- achieving success, they would be undercutting the entire marketing/advertising plan of their hosting platform.
The honest sales approach from WP/Automattic would be to say: we can provide you a platform, up until you achieve significant success; and then, it is in our financial interests, for you to leave. Obviously WP/Automattic would never sell their product if they were honest… so they look for reasons, any reasons, to control or eliminate the community. THAT appears to have been a big part of what drove their decision.
It was not a surprise that WP/Automattic kicked-us out immediately after they went into the market to get more money to expand operations. CTH was costing them money, perhaps a lot of money. As a consequence not only were they hosting a voice against their ideological interests, that voice was so big it was costing them money. Combine both factors and you get the insufferable excuse “your content” is against our interests.
Believe me, this financial ‘cost to host‘ issue is a big topic in the background of conversations in the tech industry. The hypocrisy of selling a product they do not really want to see succeed is a very interesting conversation. Sunlight upon this motive in the world of tech is kinda funny. The Automattic members can never allow this to be widely known; but the people within the machinery know exactly what the issues are.
♦ So, what does that mean to CTH 2.0? Well, we have a big server network hosting us right now – and it ain’t cheap (by a long shot). To give you an idea of how unique this situation is, they cannot even calculate the cost until they see the results over the next month or so.
This is uncharted territory. Our commenting community, specifically the number of simultaneous users, is essentially like a mini Facebook inside their server network. No-one has any idea how to manage this outside of pre-existing social media platforms that generate millions/billions in upfront revenue and construct proprietary and dedicated server farms.
It’s a good problem.. so everyone says.
It’s a good problem from the perspective of those who would love to monetize our network/community. However, that is not the purpose of our assembly.
To the extent our community will need money to securely exist and thrive safely, publicly and with privacy protections on an independent platform, that is ok. However, the true value in our community is our fellowship and the search for the truth.
♦ To the DETAILS:
The comment restoration function was a significant hurdle for a variety of reasons previously explained. One of the issues moving forward is the type of software that drives the comment function. We are trying to use the most private system possible that also provides security. The WordPress/Automattic system used a combination of proprietary creation and a system called JetPack.
Jetpack has some functional issues and is inherently connected to the comment function. When JetPack was uninstalled, it impacted the comment platform; that is why “likes” and the familiar embed Wavy avatars were lost. We are looking for alternate options that we can add to the site to restore those features and also add an edit button (if possible) to the comments. In the interim if you register a gravatar with your email address your custom avatar will follow you.
There is a comment system that most platforms are using called Disqus. If you let Disqus run ads in the comment space they provide the comment software free. However, Disqus does track users and I am not too happy with the privacy aspect. That would be a last resort, and only if they will set-up a custom privacy component.
If you are having issues with the comment feature or site access, feel free to provide feedback below and we will attempt to compile and/or assist as we move forward.
Love to all,
~ Sundance
Good move and excellent job, Sundance!
SUNDANCE:
I NEED AN ABILITY TO CONNECT VIA MOBILE PHONE.
MUCH THANKS TO YOU
Agreed! Would love the mobile phone version.
I’m on a phone. But an app would be cool.
Add my vote for a mobile app/version. Thanks
We are in new territory. The Pravda censorship is trying to get more voices silenced. People will not like it.
Sundance, CTH 2.0 is most likely going to be the wayshower for those voices that are on the block for silencing to follow; facebook-like indeed!
Is there a means, within the donate part, to set up a regular monthly donation, similar to what patreon uses for its creator platforms?
Sundance, until you are able to duplicate the WordPress format of our previous community family of “digital warriors,” being being able to communicate openly and share information in unity, like we once did, they have won. Moving the site content was never the issue. Silencing the army you created was the goal. They have separated us now. No “likes, email confirmation of comments, replies, links, etc. we have lost our community and our voice. I would gladly pay for a monthly subscription to be free. The time is NOW to correct this. We have no time to waste!!! Things are unraveling in our country too quickly!
I have been in computers for 49 years. You guys did a bang up job! Cheers to all.
The rest will work it self out.
The mobile phone platform for iPhone is suffering for not looking native but a Windows 10 look.
All in due time.
God bless all you do here. More donations coming.
I have not been able to post a reply am I locked out?
I would say no! 🙂
These overviews you are providing make sense, and make things make sense.
I remember something from one of my favorite bosses, Art Savage, who was national systems manager for the old Mode O-Day dress company. Home offices were located in Burbank at the time, and I interviewed for and got a job as his (single) staff assistant.
I enjoyed working with organizing things (i.e., systems – which were all manual at the time – lots of paper – lots of paper trails – lots of diagrams to go with the paper and paper trails) so I thoroughly enjoyed learning all that he poured out from his 40 years experience (at the time) in systems. both in terms of principles of organization and practical development of manual systems.
He talked about working with giant retailers who worked the shipping on the docks of New York – one of his favorite points was this: “Doesn’t matter if you’re organizing bras or freshly harvested carrots – the problems and the solutions are going to be similar.”
Another point he made was the one the Treehouse is experiencing, “There’s nothing like a successful, growing business to expose issues that need to be dealt with.” Of course, as you describe, SD, the “issues that needed to be dealt with” in this case were problems for the host, not for the community.
Good stuff.
makes me feel a little better knowing we just outgrew the host as opposed to some covert nefarious actions. It also puts a lot of the past frustrations experienced over the years into focus.
Outgrowing the host being part of the issue, the others cited above were indeed nefarious.
Great to be back
Yes for sure.
I’m testing my ability to reply.
Many thanks for the efforts so far! I hope the upper-right hand buttons for quickly finding responses to one’s previous Comments and “Likes” will return.
I receive no e-mails about responses to comments: is that also being resurrected? In one sense, that feature is not necessary, if one can find that information via the upper-right hand button which offered it.
Best Wishes and Many Thanks, and I hope a transcript of President Trump’s DEM-Fraud-Election-Theft speech is coming soon!
I think because I’ve never accessed CTH through WordPress, I’ve got a grab bag of geeky workarounds.
If I want to locate one of my comments to look for responses, I merely use Find In Page in my browser and look for my user name. This is what Apple calls it but every system has a similar function.
Something for a stopgap, hope it helps…
I certainly hope you have a really good contract with all sorts of safety clauses and that you save all data for the site somewhere off of the server site. And keep hard copy on external devices.
Everyone talks about back up but everyone forgets about it or puts it off until disaster strikes and they realize just what it’s going to cost them in time and money. Let alone sweat and tears.
Once you have a handle on the costs, let us know. I’m on a fixed income but I should be able to afford a regular (but small) contribution.
Seconding that idea. I too am on a fixed income, and should be able to help out with a small, regular donation.
Same here; that’s why I was wondering if there is something like the patreon thing that us fixed incomers can chip into the pot on a regular basis.
Disqual has more than a few political sacred cows. If you have anything negative to say about these people you are blocked forever. I’m glad that you are back 100% and doing what needs to be done for all America, SunDance! Thank you.
I am surprised WordPress/Automattic did not want to buy you out. If this site is compared to Facebook (socialmedia) I would think WordPress/Automattic would benefit from purchasing it-if for no other reason than to shut it down. No way they would have left it the same. You need to be very proud of what you built here and the respect you/we have gained in social media world. Truth will set you free. Great job on transfer over. I and 2 other people transferred our system over to a big corporation in New York once and it took us 3 full days to do it so we each took 8 hr turns sleeping while 2 worked and controlled the transfer. Not fun but we did it.
And SD’s reply to any such offer I’m certain would be, NFS.
Thank You Sun Dance!!!
Regarding censorship – Sidney Powell’s Twitter now gives me a warning:
Caution: This account is temporarily restricted
You’re seeing this warning because there has been some unusual activity from this account. Do you still want to view it?
As far as CTH is concerned – I want to congratulate all people who were involved with moving (saving) the site. I understand that it was a huge piece of work, accomplished in little time. I expected much more issues.
Very unusual activity – Sidney implied today in the GA rally that China owns Dominion Voting Services… that undoubtedly exploded some twitter bigwig heads.
Pretty sure she said they were unable yet to confirm it though. My understanding is that it hasn’t been confirmed.
Yet.
(1) Gab does ask for money… and it’s hard to donate to them because VISA, Paypal, etc.. have blacklisted them… but it does make them much stronger.
(2) You still have the donate button. We’ll see how long that works. Perhaps you could post a “meter” how much it’s costing you and users can donate on the fly. Keep you in the “green”. Sure, it’s not a subscription, more of a voluntary “put your money where your mouth is”.. but since we’re conservatives here we tend to do just that… unlike the Other Side that wants to use “other’s people money”.
(3) How do you plan to deal with trolls? So far it’s been a nice, troll free place, but you never know.
Welcome back.
(4) Disquss is useful in that you can see the profile of people so you can quickly detect trolls. I personally have a very good feedback over quite a few posts over the years. So, I guess they’re tracking me… Nothing I can do now about it.
(5) Like all things, if you can control what you own, you’re safe. So, congratulations on your servers now and do think about the messaging. Keep It Simple and keep it at hand.
(6) BTW, I have my own domain name and have it hosted. That means I have my own mail server too! Be really careful using third party “filters”… like what normally you’d use to catch pornography and spam. I discovered that Microsoft is filtering political links in emails. I had to turn off all filtering in my mail server and run a host based one ( mailwasher ). At least, I have control and knowledge about that… but most people are being controlled… even their Internet E-Mail ( which pisses me off to no end ).
TCTH a mini facebook but without the ideological goon squad. It’s amazing what goes on behind the scenes. Again, kudos Sundance and all the amazing moderators.
FakeBook can be addictive – I am quite addicted to my little set of private MAGA-focused groups there (we’re still monitored but we can pass around information too, and I just don’t care what they think any more).
But the Treehouse is more addictive than anything!! The combination of fellowship, humor, education, freedom, and truth beats anything on Zuckerberg’s tinpot-tyrant playground. You’re the one with the winning model.
Site still wasn’t updating properly for me today in kind of a weird way.
The December 2nd threads showed up overnight (without clearing cookies), but for some reason comments were all cut off after around 9:30AM. The December 2nd daily presidential post sat at 441 comments all day long. Posts also weren’t visible after the December 2nd daily presidential thread.
I could go to your twitter account and use those links to access, for instance, the Powell/Wood event post (but there were no comments). But if I opened a new browser tab and manually entered the CTH address, it would return me to the “old” version of the page with nothing updated after 9:30AM or so.
After getting home from work today I cleared the cookies and all that again and immediately following doing that the site still only had the December 2nd daily thread posts.
So I went to twitter and created an account to ask you if there were ongoing issues because noone else seemed to be talking about it. At this point this very post was in your feed and I followed it here. I decided to try the landing page again and voila, everything appears in working order and there are somewhere around 1400 comments visible in the daily thread.
Not sure if there is some kind of delay after clearing cookies or what, but… yeah.
Working good… for now.
It’s working well for me so far. I do miss the ‘like’ button and look forward to its restoration.
Like!
You beat them at their own game Sundance, and I salute you. The new site looks great by the way. Only divice I am having trouble getting on the correct time frame is my Nookbook, but I will figure it out eventially.
Like!
yeah, that’s an item that’s broken, that images don’t show up, only the text link – as you state downthread
I presume the tech crew is aware and working on a fix
I am certainly willing to set up a regular monthly contribution to help defray the costs. Please let us know when/how we can do that.
I am so pleased that my Avatar followed me. I set it up years ago, when I still actually lived in Texas. I’ve been in Louisiana for almost 8 years now!
If the Wavy Avatars being unavailable is an issue, maybe we can figure out how to help people created a unique Avatar for themselves.
I’m willing to help in any way I can – just call on us!
You can set up a monthly donation via PayPal (upper left on the site page).
Does Pay Pal still require we provide them extremely intrusive information to set up an account? Years ago, was setting it up until it asked for my social security number, realizing that couldn’t possibly be correct to be asked that, backed off, never tried again. Perhaps I was on one of those phony Pay Pal links even though it had been on the page, at that time, I had wanted to set up payments for.
WP deplatformed you because CTH got too big and too successful. What a mixed blessing. Anyway, it’s really good to have you up’n’running once again.
If you switch to Disqus, I would not object.
I believe disqus has complete say-so over moderation, and if that is true it wouldn’t be a good thing. I like the way Ad-Rem deals out necessary justice.
If any outfit other than the CTH folks have authority over what can or cannot be posted (outside of illegal stuff obviously) in the comments, I would think that should be a deal breaker.
Can’t seem to post a picture that will show. I post the image url and only the letters of the url show not the pic. Used to post image url and it would show up. any ideas?
Like this?
I see what you mean.
Thanks Sundance. I can’t imagine the hours and thought processes that went into achieving this move. It’s been hard being patient, but the ongoing end product shows much promise.
I don’t have much money but I set up a monthly auto pay to you 2 years ago. It’s been worth every single penny.
I would encourage others to set up autopay too. Instead of telling people to hit the donate button, put an autopay into effect.
Take care and God Bless you and all the crew.
I don’t have very much money on my retirement income either but I can set up an automatic small payment.
Minor suggestion. Make the Andrew Breitbart grafic banner a link back to the home page. That little “home” link is hard to hit on the mobile. The old site had this feature. I used it a lot.
If you click on the title “The Last Refuge” above the banner, you are sent to the home page.
Love your name! Wish I had thought of that.
Awesome.
I’ll try again but I haven’t seen any of my comments get posted.
See you
@Bullnuke
If you by chance see this, you can navigate back to the CTH main page, press ctl-f5 to force-reload the page and then come back to this thread to see all the comments (including yours).
Not sure how someone would go about achieving this on a mobile device.
On my iPhone & iPad, you can double-press the Home button to grab an app (in this case the browser you’re using – I use Brave) and drag it up to take it out of memory and cause it to reload.
No idea how non-Apple phones do it but there’s probably a way.
And thanks to Stella for getting back to me with the answer to a question! The TreeHouse is the best!
They don’t call me “trouble” for nothing !
Personally, I hate Disqus.
I began reading and commenting at biggovernment the day Andrew Breitbart launched it and frequented all the big sites as they launched. The comment feature used on those was Intense Debate. Quite a few of us left after Andrew’s death and the change of the big sites to Breitbart which switched to Disqus for commenting. We didn’t want to be tracked.
I don’t like disqus either, although I realize I am not able to articulate exactly why. I have stopped commenting on any sites that require its use but that may just be a reflection of my computer ignorance.
Disqus is risky IMHO.
They do seem to block content, and also that platform can attract massive trolls.
I rarely engage with that platform now. YMMV.
Block them and sundance should be able to cull them out
Sundance- we can never thank you enough for maintaining the Fellowship of the Tree House. Your team did an amazing job. Please let us know in a general way how you are doing with the finances of this outfit. We will all be glad to help you in any way.
Everything is pretty much back to normal, just a few bugs once in awhile.
I really miss not being able to “like” comments.
Like and testing123
Just checking in…
I did not find this particular site until I went to your twitter and clicked the link there. That got me here. Until I did that, I was only able to open when was today’s thread this morning. Also, comments there had ceased at some point. I have problems commenting and I have no idea if this will post. Just find this site every day seems to be the biggest problem.
Thank you Sundance. Everything looks grand on this end.
There was Treason committed in the election fraud
Now declare “Sedition”
Martial Law
Arrest
Trial
Executions
I just tried to post something and it did not post..
Thanks, Sundance!
I think I’m in. I have not been able to get in real time until I think now. I still cannot get in with Iphone 11 pro. I the site name it displays Not Secure-conservative treehouse.com. Many thanks to Stella who has been trying to help me. Any suggestions?
iphone here—-can only get desktop version of Treehouse. Help!
As of now the mobile version on the iPhone looks just like the desktop version. It’s probably on the checklist of things to work on.
(I am probably an oddball for preferring that page version on my iPhone – but because of lifelong myopia I now have closeup super-vision without glasses.)
That’s why I already knew how to switch between them (other than that link that used to be at the bottom of the CTH mobile page):
It’s under the 3-dot menu at bottom right, under “Share With” (stupid UI, sigh), down about half a dozen items. Requesting mobile there will do no good until a fix, though.
Lion use https://the conservativetreehouse.com
Thank you but I cannot access CTH in real time on iphone.
Having been through migrating a forum from one platform to another (and moving hosts), I can appreciate what you have been through to move to a new host. Outstanding work!
As for comments and using disqus, I would caution against that as they can and do censor users despite the community hosting the comments.
WP does chew up server bandwidth and can be hellish. As an alternate, there are various forum software packages to consider. One that might work extremely well for CTH is vBulletin (costs money) and another is phpBB (free and very fun to work with). You might like the management of forums better than WP.
As for the problems today with comments not showing up, I have discovered that after signing in and making several comments I am able to keep current with new posts/comments. Not sure if the system is just smoothing out or if commenting several times makes it all work – just a general observation.
brave browser has a system where you can set up a donation to your fav sites, i only do infowars would happily do you as well if you sign up for the rewards.
stumbled across this site, a while ago it is a permanent fixture now
I hope this works.
I’m still having trouble posting comments, Sundance. This is using my yahoo.com email address.
Ok, so the yahoo.com email works. Why does my reagan.com email not work? I have abandoned the yahoo account (I cannot even get into anymore) and only use my reagan account. Sundance, is there a problem recognizing reagan email addresses? I find that odd, considering that is what you use. Is my reagan email blocked for some reason?
What I have observed is, once I registered to make a comment using a email account, if I subsequently tried to comment using a different email account, my comment went to moderation.
As am I.
I was so tired of WordPress not even allowing me to like something!
Here’s one you’re probably aware of, Sundance, but you asked.
Comment pagination is erratic. Sometimes there are only 1 or 2 comments on a page with the usual ‘Older Comments’ and ‘Newer Comments’ options at the top and bottom of the comment page.
Ctrl + F5 sometimes loads more comments on the sparse page and sometimes it doesn’t.
Also, the longest comment string on any page I’ve seen is still shorter than the old site. So instead of the old roughly 110 to 130 comments on a page, I’m seeing about a third of that. It’s adding a lot mor pages of comments to the article.
Hope that helps point some of the fix-it crew in the right direction.
.
.
.
Sure, things are a bit buggy, but the site with comments is working and things will smooth out after a bit of time.
testing some more
Can I post and like yet?
Wonky for now, but it looks like you guys are doing a great job sorting it out. Keep up the good work
Got my avatar back?
I would say yes
Donate.
Well it was working….
But after 10 minutes or so of reading through the comments in this thread I refreshed the page and it went back to only 2 comments.
Browsing via Firefox on my desktop.
Aaaand… it’s back.
Congratulations, Sundance. You have built a magnificent community and a “social” source for freedom. The growth and the successes are awesome. Please let us know what you need. We need you and we will be there with backup ate every request.
Well let’s do MUCH MUCH more of the stuff they don’t like! Double and triple down!
Also, be prepared with multiple vendors for hosting. If things get dicey it might become a requirement to move ALL the CTH data overnight to different server locations. Then the data is saying “Catch me if you can”, like the Gingerbread man! In the telecom and
early Internet world we called this nimble data or dynamic data hosting.
Still showing up as text?
Yes