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.
My initial opinion is that moving ObWi to a WordPress site is straightforward. That's not necessarily the same as either simple or easy. I'll write something more detailed in the morning for people to pick at.
First up: What alternative platforms are there? What are their strengths and weaknesses? FYI, both obsidianwings.org and obsidianwings.com appear to be available. So, if we get some blogging software, we can create our own website and run it there. Just a thought.
Second: how do we migrate to whatever new platform we (probably meaning lj) decide on? I believe Michael Cain has already worked out how to back up our past posts and comments. Perhaps he has some insights and advice on the transition.
Third: Is there anything we can do to alert long time but infrequent users as to what is happening and where we are going? Maybe a way to strip email addresses from a couple of decades of comments? Granted, it's a "nice to have" but it would be nice.
If whatever new platform we end up on charges, who pays for it? If we create our own site, the annual registration isn't that much. But if we go again with a commercial platform it might be.
Just a few thoughts off the top of my head.
Speaking (obviously) from a position of total ignorance, I'm nonetheless hoping that all the work Michael did before, when Typepad was going through a particularly erratic phase, means we don't have to lose our whole history. I feel (and I bet I'm not alone) that losing ObWi altogether would be a very sad loss. Clearly, moving us somewhere else will mean a lot of work for somebody who knows how to do it - is there anything the rest of us can do to help?
CharlesWT - It usually provides links to its sources. I'll have to add a source links requirement to the prompt.
Links to sources would be helpful, but the deeper issue of transparency involves the selection criteria that results in those sources being included. It's one of the questions I routinely ask my lower division undergraduate students when it comes to their own papers: "what purpose does this citation serve in developing an understanding of the critical perspective from which you are writing?"
Newfield addresses this deeper sense of transparency in the article intro where he writes: "At the same time, critics have identified a set of operational flaws in the ML and deep learning systems now discussed under the “AI” banner. Four of the most discussed are social biases, particularly racism, that become part of both the model and its use; opacity, such that users cannot assess how results were generated; coercion, in that architectures, datasets, algorithms, and the like are controlled by designers and platforms rather than users; and privacy violations, which result from combinations of bias, opacity, and coercion focused on the surveillance, accumulation, and monetization of data. What I'm pointing to here falls under the second and third operational flaws. We don't know why the LLM chose these particular points to amplify. They are as opaque to us as the proprietary systems by which search results get ordered on search engines.
The lack of epistemological and methodological awareness are a deep problem, and these are the reasons why I scoff at Altman's comparison of the latest iteration of ChatGPT as being like interacting with an expert with a Ph.D.. The lack of these deeper levels of awareness are more a marker of someone much earlier in their intellectual development.
..., and it does not provide any transparency for the sources of its information...
It usually provides links to its sources. I'll have to add a source links requirement to the prompt.
*Comment archive for non-registered commenters assembled by email address as provided.
On “What to do?”
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.
"
My initial opinion is that moving ObWi to a WordPress site is straightforward. That's not necessarily the same as either simple or easy. I'll write something more detailed in the morning for people to pick at.
"
Michael is the go-to person, but...
Porting Typepad to WordPress Easily
"
First up: What alternative platforms are there? What are their strengths and weaknesses? FYI, both obsidianwings.org and obsidianwings.com appear to be available. So, if we get some blogging software, we can create our own website and run it there. Just a thought.
Second: how do we migrate to whatever new platform we (probably meaning lj) decide on? I believe Michael Cain has already worked out how to back up our past posts and comments. Perhaps he has some insights and advice on the transition.
Third: Is there anything we can do to alert long time but infrequent users as to what is happening and where we are going? Maybe a way to strip email addresses from a couple of decades of comments? Granted, it's a "nice to have" but it would be nice.
If whatever new platform we end up on charges, who pays for it? If we create our own site, the annual registration isn't that much. But if we go again with a commercial platform it might be.
Just a few thoughts off the top of my head.
"
Speaking (obviously) from a position of total ignorance, I'm nonetheless hoping that all the work Michael did before, when Typepad was going through a particularly erratic phase, means we don't have to lose our whole history. I feel (and I bet I'm not alone) that losing ObWi altogether would be a very sad loss. Clearly, moving us somewhere else will mean a lot of work for somebody who knows how to do it - is there anything the rest of us can do to help?
On “I’m forever blowing bubbles”
Thanks nous, research hub lets me request a full text, so I'll try that.
I've made a post out of GftNC's depressing news.
"
I see from hilzoy that Typepad is closing down on 30th September. What is going to happen to ObWi??
https://everything.typepad.com/blog/2025/08/typepad-is-shutting-down.html
"
CharlesWT - It usually provides links to its sources. I'll have to add a source links requirement to the prompt.
Links to sources would be helpful, but the deeper issue of transparency involves the selection criteria that results in those sources being included. It's one of the questions I routinely ask my lower division undergraduate students when it comes to their own papers: "what purpose does this citation serve in developing an understanding of the critical perspective from which you are writing?"
Newfield addresses this deeper sense of transparency in the article intro where he writes: "At the same time, critics have identified a set of operational flaws in the ML and deep learning systems now discussed under the “AI” banner. Four of the most discussed are social biases, particularly racism, that become part of both the model and its use; opacity, such that users cannot assess how results were generated; coercion, in that architectures, datasets, algorithms, and the like are controlled by designers and platforms rather than users; and privacy violations, which result from combinations of bias, opacity, and coercion focused on the surveillance, accumulation, and monetization of data. What I'm pointing to here falls under the second and third operational flaws. We don't know why the LLM chose these particular points to amplify. They are as opaque to us as the proprietary systems by which search results get ordered on search engines.
The lack of epistemological and methodological awareness are a deep problem, and these are the reasons why I scoff at Altman's comparison of the latest iteration of ChatGPT as being like interacting with an expert with a Ph.D.. The lack of these deeper levels of awareness are more a marker of someone much earlier in their intellectual development.
"
..., and it does not provide any transparency for the sources of its information...
It usually provides links to its sources. I'll have to add a source links requirement to the prompt.
*Comment archive for non-registered commenters assembled by email address as provided.