Website update, new writers, and more changes

Hi folks.

Sorry for the site outage. I don’t know the cause but our ISP has fixed things.

Going forward, we are going to change some things here. Within the week, I will be changing to a new streamlined theme that will eliminate ads and other bells and whistles that slow things down.

Without ads, the site will no longer pay for itself. If someone has a good no-cost hosting option, please let me know. Otherwise, I’ll have to revisit options down the road to cover costs.

In the next several months, I will be adding new writers to the site. These will be different voices than we’ve heard from in the past and should lead to some new interesting conversations.

Sorry again and thanks for your patience.

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Richard Chester

9 years ago

Thanks for the update. Life was getting difficult for me without HHS. Looking forward to the upcoming changes.

Aaron Greenberg

9 years ago

Looking forward to it! I haven’t followed as much lately because of things on my own end, but now that I’ve got a new job I plan to enjoy my downtime.

David P

9 years ago

Thanks for letting us know Andy!

Not sure that good and no-cost hosting go hand in hand. Site Ground generally get VERY good reviews. The cost is $3.95 per month. Maybe that could be covered via donations?

brp

9 years ago

Reply to David P

If we’re really talking about $50 a year I’d think our commentariat could cover that in a day of donations. I’d chip in.

Anyway, glad to see the site is back!

oneblankspace

9 years ago

Reply to David P

I was on SiteGround until they treated me like an idiot. They would not believe I saw what I was seeing (the live chat help window was hiding the Escalate this issue button, and I found the code that prevented this) because I was not a developer — they logged in as me, and could not see the problem until I cropped their screenshot. Also, while trying to upgrade to the next version of Drupal while on a live chat with their help desk, I overwrote my installation rather than upgraded it. That one new user who signed up that… Read more »

David P

9 years ago

Reply to oneblankspace

OBS – Yeah obviously everyone’s experience will vary. I don’t personally use SiteGround but I’ve heard for a low-cost solution, they’re better than most at handling lots of traffic.

Doug

9 years ago

New writers!

Sounds fantastic.

mosc

9 years ago

Reply to Doug

poor Doug. Thanks for keeping us a float!

Daniel Longmire

9 years ago

Reply to mosc

Indeed; three cheers for Doug…he has the been the posting lifeline for this site since John Autin has moved on (has anyone heard from him? Is he okay??). I will certainly donate $5 Canadian for the cause of top-drawer baseball discussion.

Hartvig

9 years ago

Thanks for taking the time to get things back up and running. Until you do manage to find a new host is there someplace we can go to chip in a few bucks to help tide things over. Really missed the site when it was down and I’d both like to show my appreciation and do everything I can to ensure it’s future.

Doug

9 years ago

Reply to Hartvig

Donations can be made by clicking on “Support” (top right-hand corner, under the banner).

Hartvig

9 years ago

Reply to Doug

Thanks. Unfortunately when you click on the link provided in the blog post to donate it tells me that the PayPal account to which I assume I would be donating was closed.

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Andy

9 years ago

Reply to Hartvig

I will reestablish that by the by. As I’m sure you’ve all noticed, I haven’t been able to pay any attention to this site for quite some time.

Joseph

9 years ago

Reply to Doug

I also just attempt to make a donation and discovered the same problem.

Mike L

9 years ago

Happy to contribute to get a new website up and running. I certainly haven’t had my RMDD of WAW. Personally, I use blogger, without advertisements. For what I’m trying to accomplish, it’s fine, although I don’t like the commenting functionality. Good luck, Andy.

Jim

9 years ago

New writers?! How does one go about applying for that position?

Hartvig

9 years ago

Dunno if we’re on a new host or this is just a result of losing all the ad linkage and such but speed and functionality seems to be improved about a thousand-fold today.

Thanks!

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Andy

9 years ago

Reply to Hartvig

That’s from removing the ads. I still have a few more changes to go, but I’m hoping to have a much faster site when it’s all said and done.

Daniel Longmire

9 years ago

Reply to Andy

Yep, it is definitely quicker up here in Jays-ville as well.

Andy, please let us know when you re-establish the PayPal link; we want to give you money!

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Andy

9 years ago

Reply to Daniel Longmire

I’ll re-establish that once the site is back up and running with new writers and all that. I think it would be pretty gauche for me to ask for money after being absent from the site for 2 years.

bells

9 years ago

As someone who has seen my time checking this site go from ‘several times a day’ to ‘this is the first time since this post went up two weeks ago that I’ve been here’, gotta say I appreciate hearing that you are looking to change things and put more into the site. This site (and the b-r blog it came from) have been integral in making me a solid baseball fan in the last decade, and it was sad to see a site with this potential slowly decrease in functionality and contributors. There is a strong and loyal following here… Read more »

Kahuna Tuna

9 years ago

Is anyone else unable to see reader comments on the two World Series Preview posts? The beginning of each comment shows as usual on the “Recent Comments” sidebar, but the link to the comment goes to the text of the post, and the comments themselves don’t appear under the post. Any way to fix this?