Over the past several weeks the tech team behind CTH 2.0 has been working on a test site to optimize the battle-tank known as The Last Refuge. This is phase-3 of the CTH anti-fragile system, know as the optimization phase.
The goal of optimization is to take the decades-old weight of our site, lighten the server load, increase the response time and simultaneously generate a site that optimizes based on the type of hardware being used by reader: desktops, laptops, tablets and mobile phones.
When CTH originally launched over a decade ago the theme was responsive to desktop and laptop computer users. Mobile platforms were in their infancy. Now more than half of website users are coming to sites from tablets or phones. The optimization phase will make those user experiences easier and more responsive.
The landing page of CTH will not change too much (example image on left). However, each of the top links “About Us”, “guidelines” etc will generate a different impression for the user. The right margin will be streamlined on the Main landing page, and we will be introducing an alliance of allies to replace the old-school blogroll.
Most of the decisions for the layout, font and navigability have been worked out; and now the coding is underway to generate the final product. Once that is established we will run it through the paces on the test site before switching over; much like the process we used when we switched from WordPress/Automattic to our own server network.
Several website operators have reached out asking us to provide details on the infrastructure being used to stay “anti-fragile”, meaning outside the reach of big tech. There may come a day when that information is possible to share, but it will not be in the near future. CTH is operating with an abundance of caution in the era of deplatforming and targeting.
We are aware the eye of sauron, ie Google, has already targeted CTH 2.0 to eliminate traffic and site visits. However, fortunately for us we have a long history of readership and only around 7 percent of total traffic was dependent on Google as a search value.
In what has been described as an “extraordinary situation” in the modern era, over 85 percent of CTH traffic is direct. Users and readers come directly to CTH from their browser. In the era of deplatforming this is a huge benefit.
CTH is a community of people; we take our responsibility for stewardship of our community very seriously. Privacy is the foundation of all systems we are using and no site features generates any data collection on any Treehouse guest.
This privacy approach is unique in the modern era of internet technology where data collection and cookies are now accepted practice. However, not only are we proud of the effort we are taking, I can also envision a place in the near future where any site gathering data will regret that flaw in privacy policy. CTH will lead the way on the creation of proprietary systems that protect our community; and we can see several states now considering legislation that will mandate a much more stringent view on privacy.
The optimization phase should be complete in the next two weeks. Readers will be kept aware of the countdown to the change-over. You won’t really notice too much difference from the front side, but there will be a noted faster response rate. Additionally, some of the bugs we encountered, literally because we had to move so fast to generate CTH 2.0 – and only had two weeks to move 10 years of massive files, will be worked out.
Again, I thank you for your continued support as we put the final touches on CTH 2.0 as a relaunched site outside the reach of the tech control agents. This entire move has been a painstaking time-suck to do it right. Everyone has reference points for places that did it wrong… we are blessed to have incredible assistance from people with buckets of foresight.
Remember, YOU are what matters. This community is what matters. Retaining our ability to connect in fellowship and discuss the issues in a respectful and honest manner is our priority. We are in the majority. They control the majority of systems that allow us to see the scale of our assembly. Tech’s control effort to remove voices is directly related to their need to retain the false impressions put forth by ideological comrades.
The truth has no agenda, and people are beginning to see now just how far ahead CTH was within our explanations of the people and institutional motives in the world of politics. Unfortunately, we have been very accurate with our predictions of “who”, “why”, “when and how”, the people and systems would activate against our constitutional republic. However, in the end they will fail and we, a freedom loving people, will succeed.
Don’t forget to live your best life. Nothing aggravates the totalitarian-left more than seeing joy amid the majority of people within a nation they are trying to destroy. Engage your family, friends and community with optimism – and prepare; because the best is yet to come.
Love to all,
Sundance
Thank you Sundance for all the thought and work you have put into this new platform! That goes along with all the effort and insight you put into the political discussion.The treehouse is a great place to visit and its nice to know our privacy is respected here.
thank you, Sundance!
Just checking.
I haven’t been able to separate paragraphs.
Here goes nothing.
Just checking.
I haven’t been able to separate paragraphs.
Here goes nothing.
Still doesn’t work for me. I have Duck Duck Go and an outside security software ESET. I guess the encryption of my text auto deletes multiple character spacing, or I need help to learn a new way to space paragraphs.
Using periods
.
will
.
work
Thanks for the advice. Here goes (hit the enter key twice).
Okay above here? If not, then (triple space).
How it look now?
All looks good!
Everybody is right.
Thanks for the help.
Pokey, I have to triple space. 🙂
Triple space – when it loads the paragraphs will be “normal”
^^^THIS^^^
on a desktop->hit enter key a couple times
mobile device->try to hit your return key a couple times
Absolutely Fan-fricking-tabulous.
SINCERE thanks to Sundance and his very forward-thinking IT team. I am looking forward to the tablet (iPad)-optimized format/display. My eyes are too old to focus on the .005 pt font on my iPhone… But I know younger folks use their iPhones to access this site.
Onward and upward….
Does iPhone “auto-rotate” like an Android? My text gets larger on the Android phone when I turn it sideways.
If I take off my glasses, I am so near sighted that it does not matter.
Yes – you can turn iPhone 90 degrees to get a “landscape” mode view…. but it does limit the vertical space to the width of the screen. I use iPhone 11 which is not as big as Galaxy 5’s and other certain models, but then I seriously don’t want to carry a phone that big in my pocket. IMHO, that defeats the convenience of a cellular phone. My small-ish iPhone 6s was fine but they stopped supporting it.
That’s why I originally bought and am now on my second iPad. I love reading e-books on that device. I can zoom up the font and read easily at night when my eyes won’t focus after a long day on the computer. CTH looks great on the iPad now; I can’t wait to see how it looks after two weeks have passed….
I am on a 2016 LG G4, bought when I needed it for campaign canvassing apps. I like desktops to do a computer’s job. The best feature for me was it has the best camera ever put into a smart phone up until that time.
I am seriously considering to migrating to a simple rugged flip phone for voice calls and receiving texts. Samsung makes one, the name escapes me now. There were two models, with and without a camera.
I would have the tablets for other features.
I used to love my little flip phone. It was tiny and easy to carry. I do like the convenience of a camera on my phone though and my old flip phone didn’t have one.
Remember Apple is a BIG Part of Big Tech !
Yes. I’m disgusted to support Apple’s brutal and unapologetic use of (literally) slave labor in China but I cannot find an American made cellular smartphone that integrates with an American made tablet and an American made laptop…..so I’m left with a Hobson’s choice. And I am more repulsed by Microsoft and Google than Apple. So….the choice was not good but very clear.
We all have to make those choices. It’s more than annoying. i have a small rule. Just hold your nose and make the choice that works the best for you.
Lol, I was just going to say my eyes are too old to see on anything but my 24 inch desktop monitor and at this point even then at times it’s a struggle . I’ll be left in the dust when they stop developing websites to accommodate desktop computers. Cataract surgery is imminent though. I hope they do both eyes within a short space of time.
Dear Sundance & Company,
We can never thank you enough for all that you do for our amazing Fellowship and our Republic. In many ways, we would be lost without you and the incomparable work that you do on a daily basis.
You never ask us for money or donations, although I imagine that all this new technology must cost a bundle.
Please let us know the best way to contribute to this most worthy cause.
With love and gratitude,
Seneca
Try the DONATE button on the top right, just under the prayer request!
Found you in the bin…. 🙁
Twas rather peaceful I must say!
Does anyone know if prepaid visa cards (like gift cards) work to donate to this site?
If they are genuine Visa cards they will.
Seneca, I have contributed a small amount monthly for quite a while now.
This site has always been ahead of everyone else with accurate interpretation of breaking news, and I’ve enjoyed reading your (and many more than I could ever list) comments over the years.
Long before being banned from Twitter in November, this site has kept me anchored.
This paragraph piqued my interest: We are aware the eye of sauron, ie Google, has already targeted CTH 2.0 to eliminate traffic and site visits. However, fortunately for us we have a long history of readership and only around 7 percent of total traffic was dependent on Google as a search value. So I ran some tests on DDG. My results:
On another note, images used to resize automatically. Will that be re-instituted?
(Edited because spacing)
the sizing of images is really up in the air for me too, im guessing that html might be the solution but i have hesitated on its use so far and limiting my image posting
I use postimages.org, since they allow resizing, and I use the 640×480 – Ad Rem says it’s too big for phones but it’s barely big enough for my laptop… so that’s one reason I was wondering if image resizing would once again be automatic.
The 640 is fine for the first two layers of “inset” in the comments. However, the further the insets go, the greater the difficulty with larger pix.
Tree Climber, In addition to DDG, another search engine I have used is swisscows.com which is privacy protecting. This site under both titles usually comes up in top three. It also promotes family friendly searching. Would appreciate you checking it out and give your opinion.
Much love back ‘atcha Sundance, and also those that help run this wonderful site! BD
The same feelings here. Thank you. Sundance.
I am getting a much smoother experience from the rocky start after the move, of course I dont use mobile device unless forced outta my house. It is amazing that you have technology behind you in keeping all of us in a safe place on the internet…btw I am still not getting any ‘spam’ so I am comfortable here 😛
“They” can keep their safe space. We have a safe place!! I like it dogsmaw!
Thanks to Sundance and his wonderful team for creating this “safe place”!
Thanks for all the hard work to bring us a great site!
Thank you CTH for all you do.
Thank you Sundance and tech team!! You are awesome and we are blessed by your knowledge and expertise.
Nancy … all the razor wire will not protect you from America … our roar will become deafening and will bring on the Beijing puppet’s incontinence …
Amen Brother !
Sundance is a oasis in the globalist desert. Can’t go a day w/o stopping at the oasis to drink of the knowledge found here. Many thanks to not only Sundance who w/o doubt has the best blog on the net but thanks to the mods who work around the clock to keep out the trolls, and thanks to the commenters.
Love the comments. Come for the main course which is Sundance, but stay for the desert of comments.
Think I will have two scoops of comments.
Laughing. Totally true. Love the comments.
Yep, made me laugh too.
Totally agree with you, and with 4sure.
Incredible achievement so far. Great work.
“we will be introducing an alliance of allies to replace the old-school blogroll.” I like the term “alliance of allies.”
This sharing of allied sites is a must today as sundance has pointed out. If all of the best sites did this; it would help spread mutually beneficial info without using the unreliable and increasingly censoring Google search function. It could become a very beneficial linked network that would benefit all.
Thank you Sundance for everything you have done with this site. Your recovery from the deplatforming and the emphasis on security and privacy was remarkable. Thank you!
Thank you Sundance. And may God bless you and the entire staff of our beloved Treehouse.
I was always taught to trust my gut instincts. The first time I read an article on CTH five years ago, my gut told me I had found the truth. So thankful for this place of refuge.
Thanks you Sundance and the IT Team.
I have always experienced an oddity on CTH that I have never gotten anywhere else, and it followed us to CTH 2.0 too, so I’m happy for a progress report as an opportunity to point it out:
My arrow keys will not scroll CTH, if I touch one it brings me directly to the top of the page, every time. I’m afraid I’m gonna wear out my scroll wheel!
Oh, and one more: Despite the site working for me a bazillion times faster than the the last version, I still rarely see folks gravatars, like the site is reluctant to load them. I also miss my dorky WP assigned image, and those of others, I could easily sail through a comment section to see where folks were popping up. I miss that.
Ah….you must mean the Wavatars….
I imagine they contribute to the extra “load” on the site, so they will probably be added in the final phase of production.
Yes! I had a purple guy with eyes that looked like he drank way too much coffee.
I always kinda secretly laughed to myself at some of them. You’d be surprised at how many of ’em really matched their owners personalities. 😀
Mine was a sorta-whack smarty that talked too much. Kinda fit.
Maquis:
https://www.gravatar.com/avatar/93ba5401f8fca9feb76ae079b2faa472?s=512&d=wavatar&r=G
I kind of liked mine because it was brite pink – easy to find scrolling down a page looking for one of my comments before I kept track of them with the links.
Deplorable_Infidel:
https://www.gravatar.com/avatar/ff1b7f6461371e35f1208172296a308d?s=512&d=wavatar&r=G
Exactement! Ca c’est moi!
Whoops, that was meant for the comment addressed to me just above, URLs all look alike you know…
Thank you!
1 Thessalonians 5:18 KJV
In every thing give thanks: for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus concerning you.
USA loves Melania:
https://www.gravatar.com/avatar/e7e6cf50ffb87a90a63839455e40c5e3?s=512&d=wavatar&r=G
I like the Wavatar too. ?
Resurrecting your wavatar… reposting from a couple months ago. I’ll follow up with direct links for the faint of heart. Even if CTH reenables wavatars, CTH will still pull whatever image is associated with your gravatar profile… in this case your old wavatar. Here goes…
[snip]
For Lurker360… an old friend… Wilson!
https://gravatar.com/avatar/e6aefa59ca2820a7e54dfc02560f4ba2?s=512&d=wavatar&r=G
The default avatars on the old site are “Wavatars” that are provided by Gravatar (I believe) and are one several options for WP blog admin. I liked mine so much I had to step into the Internet Wayback Machine to go retrieve it… it’s just too dorky to say goodbye.
So I went to google, searched for Lurker360 in the CTH domain, found a link with your comment on the first comment page (individual comment pages are not archived, so comment needs to be on first page), drop that blog post link into Internet Wayback Machine (the blog post itself, not the comment link), go find your comment, right-click on your Wavatar, open image in tab… and that’s what the link above points to. It’s a piece of Internet History, if you think about it. If you click on that link you can save the image then take that over to your Gravatar account and upload it.
In the link I set “s=512” to give you a 512×512 PNG file… by default it uses s=40, I think. The 512×512 doesn’t give you any higher resolution on the face portion (i.e., it’s pixelated), but that dimension corresponds to Gravatar’s “large preview” I think they call it… so that’s what I used.
Finally, once you’ve set up a Gravatar account and assigned an avatar, you don’t have to stay logged into Gravatar (wp.com) when posting comments here:
1.) As long as you use the same email address as your Gravatar account, WP will find your avatar… email is the key, not login session cookies
2.) The name you use in the CTH post can be different than your Gravatar handle
3.) You can “hide” your Gravatar profile, and your avatar will still be retrieved
Thanks, Sundance & Team! Looking forward to using the newest version since I am a mobile user exclusively.??????
I thank you so much Sundance. May God continue to bless you & all that you have done & will do in the future for my fave site CTH
FWIW – Ammo for future discussions;
A few years ago I had an online discussion with one of my college professors.
I had used Sundance’s line, “The truth has no agenda,” to which he insisted that truth; at least in his convoluted relativistic world, did in fact have an agenda.
We argued back and forth until I finally recognized the fatal flaw in his logic; “The truth has no agenda, because only people can have agendas!”
that ain’t much of a ‘professor’
you said it …. relativistic
you know you’re not gonna get much in the way of logic or reason from a guy like that
there’s a saying:
“expecting logic or reason from a liberal is a fools errand”
actually, I said that
Thank You Sundance, Treehouse, all the Moderators and fellow Treepers. Love this site!
Thank you to Sundance and Team for keeping our thoughts and opinions safe from Big Tech. I come here and know there isn’t anyone learning over my shoulder peeking.
I’m looking forward to the new changes.
Hey Sundance! Great explanation of the hardening of the Treehouse! I appreciate the effort!
I can’t help but notice you have the tech jargon down pretty well! Safe to assume you’ve learned more tech stuff over the last year than you ever could have dreamed?? LOL! Cheers!!
so true…. 🙂
Sundance has taken great care to fortify the front door. But the back door is wide open, as I’ve pointed out a few times on here.
https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2013/07/got-an-account-on-a-site-like-github-hackers-may-know-your-e-mail-address/
WordPress didn’t approve of the “mini Facebook” CTH became. Now its the “extraordinary situation” of 85% direct traffic to CTH. Not to mention others asking for help with their sites. This place is special. Thank you SD and EVERYONE helping to keep this cherished battle-tank going.
Sundance, thank you so much for all you do in designing and updating this wonderful forum. Much appreciated!
Thank goodness for your foresight SD, and for WP giving enough of a warning for you all to be so proactive.
Paul Sperry was booted from Twitter tonight.
This will end up being The Last Refuge.
EXCELLENT! EXCELLENCE! Thank you SD.
Absolutely awesome! I am so blessed to be able to enjoy the company of this fine and inspiring group. I hope and pray that its influence on our culture and public dialogue grows to the point that it dislodges every other platform out there! God bless you all for what you do!
Sundance, if you succeed
In keeping away from big tech’s reach,
This place will become the point of the spear against them.
I’m ready to chuck a few!
Well done!
I would guess the server for this place is in Poland lol
You…. and OUR President DJ Trump Rock Sundance !
Thank you Sundance and team. You never cease to amaze me in your knowledge and expertise.
May you all be blessed with a joyous and long best life. You are much loved❤️
Poland Will Fine Big Tech $13.5 Million Per Case For Removing Ideological Content: “Poland spent 45 years under Communism…It taught us the value of free speech”
https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2021/02/boom-poland-will-fine-big-tech-13-5-million-per-case-removing-ideological-content-poland-spent-45-years-communismit-taught-us-value-free-speech/
Watch closely. This is beginning to be a ‘thing’ Yesterday I saw where Australia is fighting back, too.
Thank you Sundance and team.. Y’all’s efforts to continue to provide moral intellectual reasoning voices to plight of justice should earn a presidential freedom award.. You have no idea how important you truly are to those of us fighting the forced acceptance of the communist lifestyle and lock down. Few people actually know freedoms are being revoked before their very eyes..
Once the site is completely finished you should send out an open invitation for President Trump to be able to guest post anytime he needs and to comment!
That would be AWESOME if he did post. Can you imagine the pages and pages of responses?
Troll Patrol would be a total $!^(&.
BATTLE TANK!!!
Sincere thanks for your dedication and hard work.
Much Love to you and the team!
I can’t thank Sundance enough for building and fortifying (not in the way Time magazine means it) this place…it really is a refuge!
We’ll hang-in there!
Not only is TCTH the best source of MAGA and conservative news and analysis,
TCTH is independent and totally disconnected from Big Tech platform discrimination. In other words, it will never be compromised.
I tell everyone I can these two facts.
https://memegenerator.net/instance/69284326/top-gun-thumbs-up-bravo-zulu
Sundance, Admins, and the techs working behind the scenes, Thank You for your hard work in maintaining this site and your diligence in protecting our privacy.
The past several weeks have shown just how important that is for anyone who doesn’t go along with the lefts narrative.
Sundance is not the only one taking avoiding action. Pat Lang has as well. He has moved to a host in Iceland so turcopolier.typepad.com/sic_semper_tyrannis is now at
https://turcopolier.com/
Thanks for the link !!
Thank you for all the hard work, time, and research you have put into creating a site striking a blow for the traditional American values we all cherish. Freedom! 🙂
May God be with us, and guide us all in the days to come. Perhaps now people are beginning to understand that one our most important resources is accurate information without bias.–
Just the facts.
“Whatever it takes.”
“Live your best life.”
Best phrases ever spoken during these times.
Thank you Sundance and Admins, your work and dedication is inspirational.
Dittoes, Sundance, and thanks!
Thank you so much Sundance for all you do.
Thanks so much!