Welcome to the new, improved We Hunted the Mammoth!
We’ve moved from WordPress.com and replaced the old WordPress theme with a streamlined custom theme. And we’ve been able to implement a number of long-requested features that will make navigation easier and commenting more pleasant. In related news, the Blockquote Monster has resigned to spend more time with his family.
Moving a blog with 2471 posts and 573,557 comments (yes, really) to a new server is a messy job. We were offline for longer than we expected while we tried to get all the old content up. And we’re still sorting through issues with plugins and widgets and so on. If you notice some weirdness going on please let me know in the comments below. Or send me an email.
And let me know what you think of the new features.
HUGE HUGE HUGE thanks to Tracy Bradley, who handled the redesign and the big messy move and dealt with all the technical glitches that came up. For free. Without her help the new site would look crappy and not work and my head would have exploded from frustration about a dozen times. Hire her for stuff!
I’m having a lot of trouble using this on Android Chrome. Embedded media like YouTube links are coming up as plain html and the information doesn’t always fit within the screen. I took some screenshots and wanted to email them in but I can’t find a contact address.
Sorry for not finding that mods/David! The layout is really pretty.
The redesign looks great, well done David and Tracy!
Testing the blockquoting button:
Also, 5 minute edit window. Nice.
Hey, are you folks seeing the pic at the top of the post? Some people are getting a busted image link.
I’m not so sure I agree with all the design choices made here, however, it’s only been a few minutes, and my eyes are still adjusting. (Sorry, my vision’s a little wonky. I don’t know if it’s due to old eye problems, or me not feeling quite right today.)
I think what I miss most is the splashes of color on the headers and the like. It made everything easy to distinguish visually. I also don’t think a “Random Posts” thing is a good idea. It could encourage necroing and/or trolls.
The new fonts are nice though, and a lot of things seem better organized.
After a few weeks, maybe it’ll grow on me? I mean, I could be suffering from Old Design Bias (which is totally a thing).
EDIT: The edit button seems to work, and it’s cool that we have a timer. Also, no I can’t see the image at the top of the page, and it does lead to a broken link.
Welcome back, David! 🙂
The site looks great and I’ve been furiously refreshing throughout the day to see if it was up yet.
I have three off topic things I must mention, so I guess I’ll just post them here? (Feel free to move or remove this comment if it’s unwanted.)
1.
Not sure if this has been mentioned on WHTM yet, but it seems like George Zimmerman got suspended from Twitter for doxxing and posting revenge porn pictures of his ex girlfriend, who, allegedly, “cheated on [Zimmerman] with a dirty Muslim”.
This was the actual conversation between me and my wife this morning:
Wife: If you had to say one person who just got suspended from Twitter for posting nudes of his ex girlfriend without consent, who would you guess?
Me: Is it a celebrity?
Wife: Meh..
Me: George Zimmerman
Wife: Whoa
2.
Sad news. The 42 year old teacher, Nazir, who has been in critical condition since the school attack in Trollhättan died in the hospital yesterday. He was expected to recover, but in the end he never did. That means the final death toll for this attack is 3, all of which had “foreign” names and backgrounds.
3.
I don’t know how I missed this when it happened (about a month ago), but a mainstream Swedish news website for some reason published an article basically parrotting the American MRA nonsense. The author complained about feminism “ruining an entire generation of girls”, “painting all men as rapists”, and proclaiming “most instances of domestic violence are committed by women”, “feminists are the REAL sexists”, “feminists want equal rights but not equal responsibilities”, “redefining rape!” etc etc etc. All the same old talking points. The comment section was obviously flooded by assholes cheering for this article, “finally someone dares to tell the truth!!”.
The kicker? It was written by a 15 year old guy in 9th grade. Already drowning in “false rape allegations” at that age, huh? -_-
I have to wonder if a mainstream news source has any sort of responsibility for protecting a child who wants to publish an article like this. He’s clearly just repeating what he’s heard from others, and read elsewhere, because I think his personal experience with “affirmative action” and rape allegations is fairly limited at this point. It’s been published with his full name and picture attached. If this kid grows up to be a decent person, this thing will haunt him.
I am not seeing the pic. Just a broken link.
EDIT: Ohhhh yeah, loving the edit function. I always notice spelling/grammar errors immediately after posting. :p
EDIT 2: Is everyone in auto-moderation now, or did I do something wrong?
Nope 🙁
I’m not seeing the pic.
I see it. Seen it since the post was there.
Chrome on OSX, iff’n it matters.
Tried it on Safari and got a broken link.
@dhag85: I was moderated as well, so I just assumed it was a consequence of the new site going up and everything being moved.
I see the pic fine.
Everyone is in automoderation until I approve you. Sorry, no way around that without opening the comments up to trolls.
Are you seeing the pic now?
@Fiona
Hmm. I had problems with embedded videos earlier but they seem to be working for me now, both on windows and using chrome on an android tablet. And FWIW the site looks fine overall on my android tablet.
Let me know if you’re still having problems and, if so, what phone you’re using? We want the site to work right on all platforms. you can send screenshots to me at [email protected]
Yup, picture is now working for me.
There’s no margin on the right side of the screen using Chrome for Android, just FYI.
And thanks for all the hard work getting everything moved. 🙂
New site’s loading a lot faster for my, uh, “seasoned” work computer.
New comment box is much improved as well. I’ll play with the reply system later; I’m inclined to muchly appreciate it, I like a softly nested comment system.
The link to the comments policy does not work for me.
In the last few months I’ve had severe problems with WHTM, with tabs slowing down my computer significantly, crashing my browser, making everything freeze etc. Having none of those problems right now in 2.0. 🙂
kupo, what phone or tablet are you using?
dhag, I’ll get that fixed.
If it’s not on WordPress, how are people displaying avatars?
Looks great!
I had to come and test the commenting, much like a new mattress requires odd bouncing gestures.
Everything but the comments policy link seems to be working for me.
It’s also loading much much faster than the old site.
EDIT:
Like how the edit function works too.
dhag, glad it’s working better! WordPress was putting a lot of flash ads on the site that may have been part of the problem. I will be running ads, but will do my best to avoid those sorts of ads.
Auntie Alias, I’m still using wordpress software, but the blog is no longer hosted through wordpress.com.
Also, folks, if you get stuck in moderation, sorry, the antispam software isn’t working right just yet and so every comment is getting put in moderation.
Thanks, David. I’m gonna try the Reply button this time.
I’m glad this thing remembers my identity so I don’t have to retype my name and email every time.
Let’s see if the WP emoticons still work: 🙂 :bear:
Nice, very nice. I’d do the same for my website but, well, I can’t afford to and I don’t take donations. I know I haven’t updated in a while but I’ve been preoccupied by work and back surgery. I’ll be writing something about the PP shooting incident, I just have to make time.
I see one (1) adorable disembodied kitteh head atop a cold, unfeeling steel automaton. So that’s more or less what cats always look like to me so…yea, carry on with your plotting of world dominion, felines.
Addendum: It looks like if you hit submit without filling in name etc. and then you go back and fill that information in upon the error page’s request to do so, the page then says “Duplicate post detected. Oops! It seems as though you’ve already said that.” even though the initial post did not go through.