Spam filters are part of each hosting service's "secret sauce". Wherever we end up, I can pretty much guarantee that legitimate comments will still go into spam, but for a different set of unknown reasons.
lj: thanks for the update. Sounds good.
Michael: thanks! Also, buckwheat pillow arriving tomorrow - here's hoping.
wj: whenever anything of mine goes into spam, if it's important I always post a request for retrieval here, so no need for apology to me!
Barely on topic:
I have been remiss. I just went and discovered that we had stuff in the Spam folder dating back to June! I have, for what little it is worth, cleared that up. Apologies to Charles, russell, Hartmut, GftNC, etc.
Hoping to do better going forward (wherever we go)
GftNC, updating my archive takes minutes and can be done right up until Typepad shuts the servers down. No real reason to stop posting and/or commenting yet. Most convenient timing might be when lj decides he's ready to move the last several posts and comments to the new site; I can update my archive and provide him with a file with those posts/comments that WP will import.
Just a thought, that if the archive site is also WordPress, all WP sites require some amount of ongoing maintenance even if the content doesn't. That's just the way WP has set things up. At some point, one or more of the WP version, the PHP version, the theme version, or the widgets version will get out of whack and the site will just stop running.
Each of the long-running blogs I follow that run on WP eventually puts up a post saying, "We have to upgrade. Sh*t will be broken."
WP's current import function appears to be robust enough that loading the old content is just tedious, not difficult. And can be done after the new site is running.
Here's the current rough plan
-Going to set up a new site with wordpress after I finish a conference presentation next weekend.
-We will make a second archive site with all the old content, but not be interactive in anyway.
After the new site is up, I'll copy any posts that we make at either site to both sites. The posts here will have the comments closed and a note to go to the new site, so anything going up in the last half of sept will be here, but you'll need to go to the new site to comment.
This way, we can get the site up and not rush migrating the old data, as well as avoiding the problems of integrating everything. This means that we might lose the last few comments here, but this seems like the least fuss. We could also go back and import some key posts or link to them on the front page. I'm thinking particularly of Andrew's last post, but there may be other important ones we want to bring forward.
Also, thanks for all the generous offers of financial support, but it is more of a pain dealing with the problems of international money transfer (along with the added scrutiny, believe it or not), but when I get the site up, I will ask regular commenters to consider making a post with their favorite topic or their introduction/interesting story to populate the blog with some content and discussion. It's not required, but it will be helpful.
Should we be commenting as little as possible to keep your newest version up to date before we find out where we are migrating to, Michael? (Or does this make zero sense, which would be unsurprising given my ignorance of this whole subject?)
Back in the day they would have worked with WordPress to migrate anyone that chose to move There was a certain sensitivity to just killing people's content.... I am curious, I will look later, to see if anyone is offering migration.
GoDaddy, where I rent my domain and cloud server, offers to migrate sites from other platforms to WordPress for a fee. GoDaddy will do pretty much anything for a fee :^)
Typepad.com hasn't signed up new customers for Moveable Type sites for five years now. Two years ago, they came close to shutting down the Moveable Type service. I seem to recall from then that they offered to migrate people to a WordPress service under the same corporate umbrella. Guess they're on the "well, we warned you" plan this time.
I tested the WordPress import function against a subset of my archive today, and it worked fine. I think we're down to where it's just going to be tedious now.
Thanks Michael. Back in the day they would have worked with WordPress to migrate anyone that chose to move There was a certain sensitivity to just killing people's content.
I am curious, I will look later, to see if anyone is offering migration. Or maybe blogs are just not a big deal anymore.
Since there are a number of readers interested...
Typepad's export function appears to be broken, at least for content as large as Obsidian Wings'. I have updated my software for scraping the site content the hard way -- Typepad added more stuff to discourage scraping. I've updated my site archive to this morning and put a copy up in the cloud where the editors can access it. There may be some hiccups, but this was (imo) the critical step to preserve the site's history.
I admit to a certain amount of curiosity about how many other long-running blogs there may be for whom the export function is broken, who don't have access to a stubborn old software guy?
That pillow is £136 to order here, and cannot be dispatched for 6 - 7 months! And it looks like our standard size pillows (i.e. which will fit normal UK pillow cases) are a bit smaller, 27.16 inch x 16.92inch versus your 20 x 26 inch. But I think the important thing is the weight of the hulls, the one I am thinking of (as well as being cheaper - around $50) seems to have very good reviews, and says it has 9.25 lbs of hulls in it, versus your one which has 9.75 lbs. In all other respects this one looks pretty good (i.e. with zip so you can add or subtract husks, organic etc etc), so I reckon I will go with this one as a trial, and if it only lasts a couple of years so be it, and I will order again.
...and am about to order a buckwheat husk pillow. This is the brand I got most recently. There was a very faint dried plant material sort of odor for a few days. On the higher end price for a pillow, but I expect to use it for >10 years.
Michael: as well as being a God of Tech, you are now officially an influencer. I have returned new pillows 1 and 2, and am about to order a buckwheat husk pillow. Fingers crossed.
I will gladly contribute from the large chest of doubloons I recently discovered in a shipwreck at the bottom of Horse Pond Bay, which is only ten feet deep. It's hard to believe no one got to it before me.
Er... I'm one of those longtime readers, but infrequent commenters. This is awful news, and I do hope ObiWi can migrate. I have no tech skills whatsoever to offer, but would be happy to kick in some expense money.
Please, ye Gods of Tech (hi, Michael), save Obsidian Wings. After 18 years here, I would miss it terribly.
I don't have the foggiest on how it works, but if it costs money to grab the ObsidianWings.com and/or .org domain names, I'd happily chip in. But I leave it to you whether that's worthwhile.
FWIW, if you compile an email list I would gladly share my email address with anyone who cares to share theirs.
--TP
Priority item from my perspective... Verify the Typepad export function still works. Last time around, the Typepad update that fixed export broke my code that had scraped the site contents the hard way. If the export function is broken again, fix my code and scrape content newer than what I got previously. Once that's done, retrieve any images hosted by Typepad that are newer than my last checkpoint. Once there's a safe copy of the content, the rest is just details :^) I'll take on this task and let select people know when I have put a copy in a public place.
One possible path might be to export the current site to a blog that doesn't update, making it an archive, and starting a new blog that we could set up in the most efficient way. That way, we could deal with the deadline and get an archive up later.
*Comment archive for non-registered commenters assembled by email address as provided.
On “What to do?”
If AI was real and ready for prime time, spam filters would work a whole lot better than they demonstrably do.
"
Spam filters are part of each hosting service's "secret sauce". Wherever we end up, I can pretty much guarantee that legitimate comments will still go into spam, but for a different set of unknown reasons.
"
lj: thanks for the update. Sounds good.
Michael: thanks! Also, buckwheat pillow arriving tomorrow - here's hoping.
wj: whenever anything of mine goes into spam, if it's important I always post a request for retrieval here, so no need for apology to me!
"
Barely on topic:
I have been remiss. I just went and discovered that we had stuff in the Spam folder dating back to June! I have, for what little it is worth, cleared that up. Apologies to Charles, russell, Hartmut, GftNC, etc.
Hoping to do better going forward (wherever we go)
"
GftNC, updating my archive takes minutes and can be done right up until Typepad shuts the servers down. No real reason to stop posting and/or commenting yet. Most convenient timing might be when lj decides he's ready to move the last several posts and comments to the new site; I can update my archive and provide him with a file with those posts/comments that WP will import.
"
Just a thought, that if the archive site is also WordPress, all WP sites require some amount of ongoing maintenance even if the content doesn't. That's just the way WP has set things up. At some point, one or more of the WP version, the PHP version, the theme version, or the widgets version will get out of whack and the site will just stop running.
Each of the long-running blogs I follow that run on WP eventually puts up a post saying, "We have to upgrade. Sh*t will be broken."
WP's current import function appears to be robust enough that loading the old content is just tedious, not difficult. And can be done after the new site is running.
"
Here's the current rough plan
-Going to set up a new site with wordpress after I finish a conference presentation next weekend.
-We will make a second archive site with all the old content, but not be interactive in anyway.
After the new site is up, I'll copy any posts that we make at either site to both sites. The posts here will have the comments closed and a note to go to the new site, so anything going up in the last half of sept will be here, but you'll need to go to the new site to comment.
This way, we can get the site up and not rush migrating the old data, as well as avoiding the problems of integrating everything. This means that we might lose the last few comments here, but this seems like the least fuss. We could also go back and import some key posts or link to them on the front page. I'm thinking particularly of Andrew's last post, but there may be other important ones we want to bring forward.
Also, thanks for all the generous offers of financial support, but it is more of a pain dealing with the problems of international money transfer (along with the added scrutiny, believe it or not), but when I get the site up, I will ask regular commenters to consider making a post with their favorite topic or their introduction/interesting story to populate the blog with some content and discussion. It's not required, but it will be helpful.
"
Should we be commenting as little as possible to keep your newest version up to date before we find out where we are migrating to, Michael? (Or does this make zero sense, which would be unsurprising given my ignorance of this whole subject?)
"
Back in the day they would have worked with WordPress to migrate anyone that chose to move There was a certain sensitivity to just killing people's content.... I am curious, I will look later, to see if anyone is offering migration.
GoDaddy, where I rent my domain and cloud server, offers to migrate sites from other platforms to WordPress for a fee. GoDaddy will do pretty much anything for a fee :^)
Typepad.com hasn't signed up new customers for Moveable Type sites for five years now. Two years ago, they came close to shutting down the Moveable Type service. I seem to recall from then that they offered to migrate people to a WordPress service under the same corporate umbrella. Guess they're on the "well, we warned you" plan this time.
I tested the WordPress import function against a subset of my archive today, and it worked fine. I think we're down to where it's just going to be tedious now.
"
Thanks Michael. Back in the day they would have worked with WordPress to migrate anyone that chose to move There was a certain sensitivity to just killing people's content.
I am curious, I will look later, to see if anyone is offering migration. Or maybe blogs are just not a big deal anymore.
"
Since there are a number of readers interested...
Typepad's export function appears to be broken, at least for content as large as Obsidian Wings'. I have updated my software for scraping the site content the hard way -- Typepad added more stuff to discourage scraping. I've updated my site archive to this morning and put a copy up in the cloud where the editors can access it. There may be some hiccups, but this was (imo) the critical step to preserve the site's history.
I admit to a certain amount of curiosity about how many other long-running blogs there may be for whom the export function is broken, who don't have access to a stubborn old software guy?
"
That pillow is £136 to order here, and cannot be dispatched for 6 - 7 months! And it looks like our standard size pillows (i.e. which will fit normal UK pillow cases) are a bit smaller, 27.16 inch x 16.92inch versus your 20 x 26 inch. But I think the important thing is the weight of the hulls, the one I am thinking of (as well as being cheaper - around $50) seems to have very good reviews, and says it has 9.25 lbs of hulls in it, versus your one which has 9.75 lbs. In all other respects this one looks pretty good (i.e. with zip so you can add or subtract husks, organic etc etc), so I reckon I will go with this one as a trial, and if it only lasts a couple of years so be it, and I will order again.
"
...and am about to order a buckwheat husk pillow.
This is the brand I got most recently. There was a very faint dried plant material sort of odor for a few days. On the higher end price for a pillow, but I expect to use it for >10 years.
"
Michael: as well as being a God of Tech, you are now officially an influencer. I have returned new pillows 1 and 2, and am about to order a buckwheat husk pillow. Fingers crossed.
"
I will gladly contribute from the large chest of doubloons I recently discovered in a shipwreck at the bottom of Horse Pond Bay, which is only ten feet deep. It's hard to believe no one got to it before me.
"
Ditto to all who are willing to contribute to ongoing expenses for new site.
On “I’m forever blowing bubbles”
It's also available online (a scan of the physical book as pdf).
On “What to do?”
Er... I'm one of those longtime readers, but infrequent commenters. This is awful news, and I do hope ObiWi can migrate. I have no tech skills whatsoever to offer, but would be happy to kick in some expense money.
On “I’m forever blowing bubbles”
I still have my copy of The Policeman’s Beard Is Half-Constructed.
On “What to do?”
If it helps, I'd be happy to pay for a domain name, and hosting, for as long as I live.
"
What TonyP said, in every respect.
"
Please, ye Gods of Tech (hi, Michael), save Obsidian Wings. After 18 years here, I would miss it terribly.
I don't have the foggiest on how it works, but if it costs money to grab the ObsidianWings.com and/or .org domain names, I'd happily chip in. But I leave it to you whether that's worthwhile.
FWIW, if you compile an email list I would gladly share my email address with anyone who cares to share theirs.
--TP
"
Don't have anything of value to add to the discussion except that I'm glad y'all are handling this.
"
Priority item from my perspective... Verify the Typepad export function still works. Last time around, the Typepad update that fixed export broke my code that had scraped the site contents the hard way. If the export function is broken again, fix my code and scrape content newer than what I got previously. Once that's done, retrieve any images hosted by Typepad that are newer than my last checkpoint. Once there's a safe copy of the content, the rest is just details :^) I'll take on this task and let select people know when I have put a copy in a public place.
"
One possible path might be to export the current site to a blog that doesn't update, making it an archive, and starting a new blog that we could set up in the most efficient way. That way, we could deal with the deadline and get an archive up later.
*Comment archive for non-registered commenters assembled by email address as provided.