This thread is to continue discussions on weblog mechanics and ideas from telelogical.org
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Hi Sal,
At comment #85 from the UD thread, “Bill Dembski is world famous” says creationism’s prodigal son Michael Shermer, there is a hyperlink you posted for “Young Cosmos”. It is anchored to a website named:
That’s long and isn’t as easy to remember to type as:
“youngcosmos.com”
(which is working)
Also, it doesn’t resolve in the browser.. so the guys/gals from UD might not be aware and might get a little confused. So, you might want to correct that hyperlink to “www.youngcosmos.com”.
Anyway. It sure is good to have forum to chat more freely regarding Scripture, creationism & science .. etc..
Sal,
I believe the comments will work fine. Below are the settings. If a new subscriber makes a post, we will need to approve the comment.. thereafter the subscriber’s post will appear immediately (implied by the settings below). Also, the subscribers comment will be held in que if he/she has more than two URL’s in their comment. I feel this is a good setting as is:
Before a comment appears:
[not checked]… An administrator must approve the comment(regardless of any matches below)
[checked] Comment author must fill out name and e-mail
[checked] Comment authormust have a previously approved comment
What do you think about the cateogorization? Each posting needs to be logically categorized. This may seem simple, but it can be a bit difficult. A well designed hierarchy of categories will help keep the blog streamlined for everyone. Keeping in mind that this is an ID and YEC blog. Question:
How should we categorize information (posting), especially at the top level? There can be several top level categories. Here are some ideas that I am not biased to neccessarily… but that might help give ideas on how best to order the site. In the long run, it will aid in finding information intuitively (thus rapidly).
Top categories (anad hoc proposal)
Scripture | Science | Philosphy | Misc. | Uncategorized
Would ‘Science’ be better suited as a subcategory of ‘Philosophy’ or vice versa?
Obviously enough, categories, like ‘Science’, would be broken down into other subcategories.
Any alternate ideas, modifications or add-ons? — Again, it’s an ID and YEC blog.
The reason we want ID here is that it is a good marketing tool for the website. The website should be a solid resource for every seeker.
Ashby Camp’s best of best list at True Origins is a good way to lay out some categories.
What I’d like is to use Wordpress’s Page features to create a hierarchical map and even pages that will function as a “Textbook” for beginner, intermediate, and advanced students of the Origins Issue.
I’m still spooling up on how to possibly work this out from a technical standpoint.
How hard would it be to make a TrueOrigins.org/AshbyCamp like page? [except bigger fonts and layout]
It should be very easy. However, I don’t think the layout is that appealing (the web page is too long). We can make a hierarchy of webpages designed n an outline of similar content.
In the interim, this word press stuff is really squirrely. For example, I use a blockquote in the post up top, and then al the characters on the left margin of every thread got chopped off.
I’ve seen it happen before where one post throws off the entire page.
Perhaps we could work on this page first and add some tabs to under construction pages.
The photo above needs changing. What do you think of all this red lettering on white. It’s a bit hard on my eyes.
Yeah, that’s easy. But before starting to grab things and throw them up on blog pages.. some ordering need to be in place.
We need a smart outline to define the hierarchy. You mentioned you’d like to have:
Beginner | Intermediate | Advanced
Would this mean three different outlines? or an outline like so:
[this is made up on the fly .. not a serious attempt for an outline]
I. Beginner
A. Why all the controvery about origins?
B. Some basic questions.
C. Competing answers.
D. Which answer is supported by the evidence.
etc…
II. Intermeiate
A. History of origins debates.
B. Intelligent Design
C. Evolution
D. Young Earth
etc…
III. Advanced
A. Quantifying Design
B. Tautologies in Science
C. Fossils
D. Molecular Evidences
E. Cosmologies
etc…
IV. References
A. Books
B. Websites
C. Videos
etc…
Note: Again, the above is ALL very random. I did not put much thought into the outline at all. It is only to serve as a possible model for an overall concept of some outline.
I don’t know a great deal on the details or history of Word Press. However, I’m not really confused about much of what I see that they’ve provided - it seems well designed & intuitive to use. I understand the overall dynamics and the lower levels like HTML coding and basics of CSS & JavaScript.
About the basics of the Weblog… I think it is working fine. That’s the great thing about this. It is so out of the box, that perhaps you are thinking there is more to do. Check your perception on that, and answer, Is there really that much lacking in functionality? The main thing that I can see that we might need to do is refine & customize the appearance more, organize pages for content and get an idea for how to roll out content (which you already have the most experience with - from UD).
There might be a couple tweaks that need to be done. For example, the problem you mentioned with the clipping of the left edge of thread characters [btw: my first guess is that it's related to the chosen Mars theme - maybe some nuance or limitation within the way the CSS or HTML is coded.] But those are fairly limited and small issues.
What do you want to do? Add extra features or functions? Just let me know and we’ll work from there – even if we need to learn a thing or two. Don’t let your imagination be hundered… but keep it within technological reality
JGuy
p.s. The image at the top is pixelated, or has compression artifacts. Do you have a higher resolution or quality image?
Regarding the image at the top, here is a peculiar situation. After I did all I could to set the image up, the new image didn’t appear. Now it appears several hours later when using a different computer and internet connection.
I tried everything like deleting cookies and refreshing, and still the old image persisted.
Sal,
I don’t think cookies are the thing to delete in that case. I’m pretty sure there’s a folder that cahe’s images, and I don’t know the exact prefences/options to change, off hand, to work around that (if any).
Try this:
Hold the shift key down + click the refresh button
This forces the browser (MS Explorer) to reload content from a webpage, rather than using the cache information. It might work for images too.
JG–
ps. I don’t need FTP access. I found a sufficient way to upoad files to the website using the interface.
1. The letters being chopped off when I use “blockquote”. For example, in the article up top, put the text with a blockquote and watch what happens.
I haven’t changed anything, and I do not see the problem. Is it currently chopping them off on your computer? I’m using MS Explorer 7. I didn’t see them cut off using Firefox 1.5.0.9 either. [get a screenshot of it]
2. Site Feed RSS are in the top right corner, I don’t think they belong there. Do we even need it displayed????
I don’t mind it personally. I think it might be good to keep it for those that might use it – it’s more cutting edge w/ how people can be informed. Also, it might boost site relevence when crawled by search engines later. Maybe we can cut it out, or move it, at a later time – if it’s not currently too much of an eye sore.
3. Feel free to search for other themes.
I think you picked one of the better themes available from the list. However, I’m not impressed by the lower case aspect fo the theme. I’ll take this comment of yours as a permission to alter look and feel around… particularily since we don’t have really any traffic at the moment. Users should understnad if the look changes.. since it’s new.
4. How hard is it to have the sidebar or top bar have hyperlinks to non-word press powered pages
Elaborate, so that I’m sure I understand you exactly.
5. I want to play with word press pages and see what happens
Let me knwo what you find. Also, let me know what you want to do. I don’t think it’s too far from a useable site. Are yo ufamiliar with CSS?
Another wish list item: the search feature doesn’t search the comments. Is this changeable?
Good question. I suspect that if the built in search is not searching comments, then it might require a understanding of the WP database to manipulate. If it is difficult, however, I think we can add a google search (or other) search feature that will crawl and archive the entire site. Example: http://www.freefind.com/
….
Again. I do not see any chopped off text at this moment. And I haven’t changed anything in the postings using block quoptes (or anything) since you posted the comments above, and I won’t until you respond to this. It’s Tuesday night 11:30pm PST at this moment… should I see it now? Do you still see it? What browser are you using?
Welcome Back Sal,
I had just sent you an email wondering what happened to ya I just noticed that you were back here, and saw your recent UD posting, after senidng the email.
Ok. I checked out the screen captures. I do not have that problem on my screen. If I am not mistaken, I’ve seen/experienced the same effect on UD in the comments section – maybe. But since I do see it ok for myself now…
I’m going to guess and think it has something to do with your browser and/or browser settings. I’m using Internet Explorer version 7.0..and I have used Firefox 1.5.0.9. Both work fine on my computer compared to what you showed in screen shots.
Check your Tools/Internet Options and look for anything dealing with “styles” or CSS settings. Fiddle w/ those first. Screen resolution? I notice your lettering is a bit more pixelated than mine. Mine is has the smoothing (check alias setting – even though tha tis probably reaching). Our text sizes seem equal. It kind of seems related to how your browser is “deciding” to resolve the html tags and placing the content. Yet, our pages seem to have the same characters PER row.
Even though the problem is fixable in my browser, I don’t have any special settings, and I can also view other weblogs without these problems. I’d prefer to build this website in the most generic setting possible. Some of the other themes work without this problem, and if I can figure out why, that will help.
I’ve been really busy, and things won’t relent any time soon. I might be getting a website pro in a few weeks.
One thing I may do is cross post like Denyse O’Leary at UD to get some web traffic from the pro-ID YECs over to here.
Thanks for you help. God willing this will come together, but it will be slow. I will be tied up with things outside of ID for many weeks if not months.
This project is one I have a lot of interest in, thanks for undertaking it! I’ve been a longtime lurker on the ID blogs and on the anti-ID blogs (inasmuch as I can put up with the latter’s vitriol), but have seldom commented on any of them. I usually feel as though there’s too much for me to learn to bother contributing my elementary ideas.
I lean toward a young earth belief, but wish I had better reasons for gravitating toward the position than I do. AiG and the like have thought-provoking things to say but often leave me unsatisfied. I’m hoping this site will be willing to confront some of the harder questions.
I’ll attempt to inject my thoughts into the conversation here more than elsewhere. For now I’ve only read the thread at your other blog, so I won’t say much, except that I’ve long wished that blogs would revise their layouts in order to promote ongoing conversation in addition to giving quick access to new posts.
I believe that the image at the top of the blog that is labeled “Radio Image of the Universe” is actually an image of the Milky Way at radio wavelengths. From earth we view the Milky Way edge on. The image is oriented such that the disk of the Milky Way runs horizontally through the center of the image.
If you have a link to where you got the image I can check it out for you and confirm … it could be that the image above was cropped from a larger image that covered the entire sky.
I look forward to the big roll-out of this site … any idea when that may be?
Hi Sal,
At comment #85 from the UD thread, “Bill Dembski is world famous” says creationism’s prodigal son Michael Shermer, there is a hyperlink you posted for “Young Cosmos”. It is anchored to a website named:
“http://smartaxes.com/blog/2007/02/18/continuation-of-uncommon-descent-discussion-and-open-thread/”.
That’s long and isn’t as easy to remember to type as:
“youngcosmos.com”
(which is working)
Also, it doesn’t resolve in the browser.. so the guys/gals from UD might not be aware and might get a little confused. So, you might want to correct that hyperlink to “www.youngcosmos.com”.
Anyway. It sure is good to have forum to chat more freely regarding Scripture, creationism & science .. etc..
Sal, I think my comment is hung in the system. It had hyperlinks in it.
Apparently every commenter is being put in the moderation queue. Any ideas why???
JGuy,
You are now an administrator.
Sal
Sal,
I’ll see what I can figure out.
Sal. My prior comment posted immediately. However, I’m not certain whether that was because you gave me an admin or not.
Sal,
I believe the comments will work fine. Below are the settings. If a new subscriber makes a post, we will need to approve the comment.. thereafter the subscriber’s post will appear immediately (implied by the settings below). Also, the subscribers comment will be held in que if he/she has more than two URL’s in their comment. I feel this is a good setting as is:
Before a comment appears:
[not checked]… An administrator must approve the comment(regardless of any matches below)
[checked] Comment author must fill out name and e-mail
[checked] Comment author must have a previously approved comment
Sal and others,
What do you think about the cateogorization? Each posting needs to be logically categorized. This may seem simple, but it can be a bit difficult. A well designed hierarchy of categories will help keep the blog streamlined for everyone. Keeping in mind that this is an ID and YEC blog. Question:
How should we categorize information (posting), especially at the top level? There can be several top level categories. Here are some ideas that I am not biased to neccessarily… but that might help give ideas on how best to order the site. In the long run, it will aid in finding information intuitively (thus rapidly).
Top categories (an ad hoc proposal)
Scripture | Science | Philosphy | Misc. | Uncategorized
Would ‘Science’ be better suited as a subcategory of ‘Philosophy’ or vice versa?
Obviously enough, categories, like ‘Science’, would be broken down into other subcategories.
Any alternate ideas, modifications or add-ons? — Again, it’s an ID and YEC blog.
The reason we want ID here is that it is a good marketing tool for the website. The website should be a solid resource for every seeker.
Ashby Camp’s best of best list at True Origins is a good way to lay out some categories.
What I’d like is to use Wordpress’s Page features to create a hierarchical map and even pages that will function as a “Textbook” for beginner, intermediate, and advanced students of the Origins Issue.
I’m still spooling up on how to possibly work this out from a technical standpoint.
How hard would it be to make a TrueOrigins.org/AshbyCamp like page? [except bigger fonts and layout]
Sal
Sal,
Do you mean like this one?
http://www.trueorigin.org/camplist.asp
It should be very easy. However, I don’t think the layout is that appealing (the web page is too long). We can make a hierarchy of webpages designed n an outline of similar content.
I’m for whatever works and is helpful to readers.
In the interim, this word press stuff is really squirrely. For example, I use a blockquote in the post up top, and then al the characters on the left margin of every thread got chopped off.
I’ve seen it happen before where one post throws off the entire page.
Perhaps we could work on this page first and add some tabs to under construction pages.
The photo above needs changing. What do you think of all this red lettering on white. It’s a bit hard on my eyes.
Sal
Sal,
Do you mean like this one?
http://www.trueorigin.org/camplist.asp
Yeah baby. And there is another list at http://www.RAE.org
Sal
Yeah, that’s easy. But before starting to grab things and throw them up on blog pages.. some ordering need to be in place.
We need a smart outline to define the hierarchy. You mentioned you’d like to have:
Beginner | Intermediate | Advanced
Would this mean three different outlines? or an outline like so:
[this is made up on the fly .. not a serious attempt for an outline]
A. Why all the controvery about origins?
B. Some basic questions.
C. Competing answers.
D. Which answer is supported by the evidence.
etc…
A. History of origins debates.
B. Intelligent Design
C. Evolution
D. Young Earth
etc…
A. Quantifying Design
B. Tautologies in Science
C. Fossils
D. Molecular Evidences
E. Cosmologies
etc…
A. Books
B. Websites
C. Videos
etc…
Note: Again, the above is ALL very random. I did not put much thought into the outline at all. It is only to serve as a possible model for an overall concept of some outline.
Or.. we can make a huge list like the Camp page.. and then streamline it later.
JGuy,
Before we move forward, I’d like to get the basic weblog functioning. How much do you know about WordPress?
Sal
Sal,
I don’t know a great deal on the details or history of Word Press. However, I’m not really confused about much of what I see that they’ve provided - it seems well designed & intuitive to use. I understand the overall dynamics and the lower levels like HTML coding and basics of CSS & JavaScript.
About the basics of the Weblog… I think it is working fine. That’s the great thing about this. It is so out of the box, that perhaps you are thinking there is more to do. Check your perception on that, and answer, Is there really that much lacking in functionality? The main thing that I can see that we might need to do is refine & customize the appearance more, organize pages for content and get an idea for how to roll out content (which you already have the most experience with - from UD).
There might be a couple tweaks that need to be done. For example, the problem you mentioned with the clipping of the left edge of thread characters [btw: my first guess is that it's related to the chosen Mars theme - maybe some nuance or limitation within the way the CSS or HTML is coded.] But those are fairly limited and small issues.
What do you want to do? Add extra features or functions? Just let me know and we’ll work from there – even if we need to learn a thing or two. Don’t let your imagination be hundered… but keep it within technological reality
JGuy
p.s. The image at the top is pixelated, or has compression artifacts. Do you have a higher resolution or quality image?
JGuy,
Regarding the image at the top, here is a peculiar situation. After I did all I could to set the image up, the new image didn’t appear. Now it appears several hours later when using a different computer and internet connection.
I tried everything like deleting cookies and refreshing, and still the old image persisted.
Sal
Sal,
I don’t think cookies are the thing to delete in that case. I’m pretty sure there’s a folder that cahe’s images, and I don’t know the exact prefences/options to change, off hand, to work around that (if any).
Try this:
Hold the shift key down + click the refresh button
This forces the browser (MS Explorer) to reload content from a webpage, rather than using the cache information. It might work for images too.
JG–
ps. I don’t need FTP access. I found a sufficient way to upoad files to the website using the interface.
JGuy,
The main page is almost there. Here are the kinks I’d like to work out:
1. The letters being chopped off when I use “blockquote”. For example, in the article up top, put the text with a blockquote and watch what happens.
2. Site Feed RSS are in the top right corner, I don’t think they belong there. Do we even need it displayed????
3. Feel free to search for other themes.
4. How hard is it to have the sidebar or top bar have hyperlinks to non-word press powered pages
5. I want to play with word press pages and see what happens
Salvador
Another wish list item: the search feature doesn’t search the comments. Is this changeable?
Sal
Jguy,
Do you see the chopped off text to the left. That’s what happened when I added blockquote to the text above.
Any ideas?
Sal
Sal,
I haven’t changed anything, and I do not see the problem. Is it currently chopping them off on your computer? I’m using MS Explorer 7. I didn’t see them cut off using Firefox 1.5.0.9 either. [get a screenshot of it]
I don’t mind it personally. I think it might be good to keep it for those that might use it – it’s more cutting edge w/ how people can be informed. Also, it might boost site relevence when crawled by search engines later. Maybe we can cut it out, or move it, at a later time – if it’s not currently too much of an eye sore.
I think you picked one of the better themes available from the list. However, I’m not impressed by the lower case aspect fo the theme. I’ll take this comment of yours as a permission to alter look and feel around… particularily since we don’t have really any traffic at the moment. Users should understnad if the look changes.. since it’s new.
Elaborate, so that I’m sure I understand you exactly.
Let me knwo what you find. Also, let me know what you want to do. I don’t think it’s too far from a useable site. Are yo ufamiliar with CSS?
Good question. I suspect that if the built in search is not searching comments, then it might require a understanding of the WP database to manipulate. If it is difficult, however, I think we can add a google search (or other) search feature that will crawl and archive the entire site. Example: http://www.freefind.com/
….
Again. I do not see any chopped off text at this moment. And I haven’t changed anything in the postings using block quoptes (or anything) since you posted the comments above, and I won’t until you respond to this. It’s Tuesday night 11:30pm PST at this moment… should I see it now? Do you still see it? What browser are you using?
JGuy
Jguy,
A screen capture of the problem can be found here:
http://www.smartaxes.com/pictures/screen_capture.bmp
Salvador
Here is a screen capture of this page. Take a look:
http://smartaxes.com/pictures/screen_capture2.bmp
Sal
Welcome Back Sal,
I just noticed that you were back here, and saw your recent UD posting, after senidng the email.
I had just sent you an email wondering what happened to ya
Ok. I checked out the screen captures. I do not have that problem on my screen. If I am not mistaken, I’ve seen/experienced the same effect on UD in the comments section – maybe. But since I do see it ok for myself now…
I’m going to guess and think it has something to do with your browser and/or browser settings. I’m using Internet Explorer version 7.0..and I have used Firefox 1.5.0.9. Both work fine on my computer compared to what you showed in screen shots.
Check your Tools/Internet Options and look for anything dealing with “styles” or CSS settings. Fiddle w/ those first. Screen resolution? I notice your lettering is a bit more pixelated than mine. Mine is has the smoothing (check alias setting – even though tha tis probably reaching). Our text sizes seem equal. It kind of seems related to how your browser is “deciding” to resolve the html tags and placing the content. Yet, our pages seem to have the same characters PER row.
JG–
Even though the problem is fixable in my browser, I don’t have any special settings, and I can also view other weblogs without these problems. I’d prefer to build this website in the most generic setting possible. Some of the other themes work without this problem, and if I can figure out why, that will help.
I’ve been really busy, and things won’t relent any time soon. I might be getting a website pro in a few weeks.
One thing I may do is cross post like Denyse O’Leary at UD to get some web traffic from the pro-ID YECs over to here.
Thanks for you help. God willing this will come together, but it will be slow. I will be tied up with things outside of ID for many weeks if not months.
Sal
Sal,
So far, it’s a cool looking Blog. Just stopped by to wish you good luck!
Sal,
This project is one I have a lot of interest in, thanks for undertaking it! I’ve been a longtime lurker on the ID blogs and on the anti-ID blogs (inasmuch as I can put up with the latter’s vitriol), but have seldom commented on any of them. I usually feel as though there’s too much for me to learn to bother contributing my elementary ideas.
I lean toward a young earth belief, but wish I had better reasons for gravitating toward the position than I do. AiG and the like have thought-provoking things to say but often leave me unsatisfied. I’m hoping this site will be willing to confront some of the harder questions.
I’ll attempt to inject my thoughts into the conversation here more than elsewhere. For now I’ve only read the thread at your other blog, so I won’t say much, except that I’ve long wished that blogs would revise their layouts in order to promote ongoing conversation in addition to giving quick access to new posts.
Sal and JGuy,
I believe that the image at the top of the blog that is labeled “Radio Image of the Universe” is actually an image of the Milky Way at radio wavelengths. From earth we view the Milky Way edge on. The image is oriented such that the disk of the Milky Way runs horizontally through the center of the image.
If you have a link to where you got the image I can check it out for you and confirm … it could be that the image above was cropped from a larger image that covered the entire sky.
I look forward to the big roll-out of this site … any idea when that may be?
Test for an editable comment; edited.
test
Please Note:
ATTENTION! YOUNG COSMOS HAS MOVED!
Salvador