Note, when Blogger was down, this post went up at the mirror site. Sorry for the delay in posting it here.
Questions from the members who visit the mirror site
I just got off the phone with Rebecca who had written a post, was attempting to publish it (at her site, Sex and Politics and Screeds and Attitude) only to get a message that Blogger was down. She's upset and I don't blame her. At another time, I would be sharing her anger and anxiety (for several hours because when Blogger says it will be down for one hour, it's more likely two hours).
But thanks to the UK Computer Gurus, we have this site. When the original site doesn't work, we just slide on over to the mirror site here. At this site, you get a visually attractive site. (UK Computer Gurus picked the template and everything else here. I did the work, the bad work, at The Common Ills original site.)
And this allows our members who prefer the look of this site (mainly, but not only European members) to get a post first from time to time.
We'll make this post to you and about you.
A number of you have e-mailed to ask why there is often such a huge delay in transfering a post over here. Sometimes this program works too slowly. During the work week, if it's moving slow, this program, there sometimes isn't time to post multiple entries here. (If it's a morning with mulitple entries.) You went a day without any posts when I was especially under the weather and (quite honestly) had forgotten the log in for this site.
With this site and the other one, hopefully, in a pinch, members have a way to access at any time.
When Blogger went crazy, I wasn't able to blog on a Thursday evening/night. Blogger has a great deal of problems from time to time. (These are supposed to be in the past.) (Right now, it's down for "schedule maintenance.") I could live without posting that evening but I was worried what would happen the next morning if Blogger was still down. It was. And UK Computer Gurus were on hand to attempt to help me but when that proved impossible, they informed that they'd taken the lead to creat a mirror site. Thanks to them, in one form or another, The Common Ills has never missed a day.
I'm sure at some point we will miss a day. But for now . . .The other big question is where is the "blog roll?"Since this is mirror site, we're using the free version. To create a blog roll would require payment.
An equal number of you have written in to say that you were glad there was no blog roll.
The other big question is will others create mirror sites? Rebecca is a community member (Sex and Politics and Screeds and Attitude). Thus far she's shown no interest in a mirror site and feels that she'll take the frustration. (That's from her. I asked her while we were on the phone what I should say.) Betty is a community member (Thomas Friedman Is a Great Man) as well and she has said she doesn't have the time to run a mirror site. Ava, Jess, Ty, Dona and Jim are community members who run The Third Estate Sunday Review. They aren't planning to do a mirror site at this time.
With the exception of their first attempt at posting, they've been fortunate to never have a Blogger problem. They asked a friend to design their site's template and it was pretty amazing. But after they did their first entry and attempted to post it, the whole thing crashed.
I think there site has a nice look to it (and disclosure, I picked the template when they were still upset about the crash) but it is nothing like the way it would have looked if the template that had been designed hadn't crashed.
Community member Folding Star has created a mirror site for A Winding Road: original site, mirror site. I really think Folding Star's mirror site has a great look to it.
When there are visitors, usually to The Common Ills main site, I will occassionally get an e-mail asking (or exclaiming) "How dare ____ write" whatever. "How dare they!"They can write whatever they want. We need more voices not less. But the e-mails that always surprise me are the ones that ask how I could have written ____ when, in fact, I didn't write it. Maybe Betty wrote it, or Rebecca or Folding Star or The Third Estate Sunday Review without any input or assist from me.
By all means, let me know if you disagree with something I've said. But I'm responsible for me. I'm not responsible for what others write. There was a time, not that long ago, where someone who should have known better wanted to hold me accountable for what Rebecca wrote. I like Rebecca, I support her right to write whatever she wants and I enjoy her voice. But I'm not Rebecca. And anyone who reads her blog Sex and Politics and Screeds and Attitude, Rebecca will frequently note a disagreement of opinion between us. We can, and sometimes do, disagree. We're different people, not clones.
I don't write the way she writes, she doesn't write the way I do. For either of us to attempt to ape the other would result in our killing on our voice as we attempted to practice imitation. So, and here's the point, the easiest way to ensure no reply (other than the automated one) is to attempt to draw a line between Rebecca and myself or any member and myself.
I think everyone is doing great work.
The second easiest way to guarantee no e-mail response is to tell me that I said something that I didn't. I've spent too many hours looking for, for instance, my universal praise of every word that David Corn has ever written. I never found it because it's never been posted. I don't have time for that nonsense. (And it truly angers me to be told I wrote something I never did.)
By all means, pick apart what I wrote, but after the David Corn (and other topics), I stopped replying to those sort of e-mails. There are certain things that I would never say and when I'm told that I said something I didn't, my first instinct is to think I must have badly written an entry that confused the person e-mailing.
A person, it should be noted, who will never include a link to the supposed post. So I'd waste multiple hours attempting to find the non-existant post.
I don't have time for that these days. So those e-mails get read but no response.
I'm thinking that those have been the big questions from e-mail coming from people who use this site.
If I forgot something, remind me please.
The e-mail address for this site is common_ills@yahoo.com.
Posted at 04:53 pm by thecommonills
