What the heck is rateyourmusic.com? As far as I can tell, it seems to be a service that many bloggers use for comments, and it seems to be down a great deal.

Why do you need a separate server for comments? I don't get it.

I'm talking to you, Jane Galt and Joanne Jacobs (though there are no doubt many other offenders, which is why the system is bogged down so much of the time).

And it's not just a matter of not being able to read or post comments. It doesn't do any good to get off blogger and blogspot if we have to wait for some other overloaded system to load before we can see your page.

If you don't have it, move over to Moveable Type, and run your own comments, on your own server.

Well, the primary problem is that most People start out with this as a very minor hobby, with no intentions of becoming big. Thus, a free host such as blogspot is all they need.

Owning your own domain can be a significant expense to a lot of us, myself included. Yes, I have a full time job, etc. etc. but I would have never gotten off of Blogspot if Dodd at Ipse Dixit had not been kind enough to help me out with hosting.

I'm referring to the people who already have their own domain.

I can understand blogspotters using a free comments service, but I don't understand the people who've taken the trouble to get off blogspot continuing to use such a service for comments.

Aaaah. I can see why that is rather confusing. Doesn't make much sense to me either.

Post a comment
The system is a little buggy (hopefully to be fixed soon). If you get an error message, it doesn't necessarily mean that your comment wasn't posted. Please open up another browser window and check before reposting, so you don't accidentally generate multiple posts of the same comment.

Ironic, isn't it.

Ironic?

No, truth in advertising. The free services are worse, but they won't tell you.

Did you have any trouble? It's just a problem for certain browsers, like Netscape 4.X, and some Opera variants. The others all work fine, but I don't want people to make multiple posts if they're working with an obsolete browser.

When you find the perfect comment system that works with every conceivable browser, let me know.

OK, since we're commenting about comments, let me comment:

Most annoying are the bloggers who set it up so that comments run newest to oldest. ("Brothers Judd," are you listening?!) It's counterintuitive. One expects the FIRST entry to be FIRST (i.e., up top), with others' comments and reactions following. That's how things work in the world of online discussion threads.

It's no fun scrolling all the way down then scrolling back up as you read.

Of course, you could make the same complaint about blog entries...

I do blog entries latest on top, but I do have the comments from top to bottom in chronological order.

Re: Comment order

It can work either way: if there are a lot of comments and you keep returning to catch the latest ones, it's a royal PITA to have to scroll all the way to the bottom (do you hear me, LGF?) for the last couple.

OTOH, if you only hit the comments once it makes sense to let them remain in their received order.

In the best of all worlds, of course, that would be yet another selection on the "preferences" page...

I actually took the YACCS comments off my blog a few months ago. Why slow down my blog for 30 extra lines of "Comments (0)"?

I could probably afford to switch off Blogger, but I'm too lazy to figure out what to do instead.

I'm only posting once or twice a week nowadays, anyway.

>> Post a comment
>> The system is a little buggy (hopefully to
>> be fixed soon).
>> Ironic, isn't it.

>Ironic?
>
>No, truth in advertising.

Ahh, ok, all but the "hopefully to be fixed soon" part, eh? :-)

I've had my domain since 1997 or '98, and only got into blogging earlier this year. By then my domain was hosted by an outfit that couldn't seem to get along with Blogger's FTP service. But since then my host has upgraded their hardware and now -- thanks in part to a pointed hint from Dodd -- my blog is hosted on my domain.

Now the problem is I'd have to upgrade my hosting account to get CGI support to use Moveable Type, and even with my own domain and a broadband connection it is all just a hobby for me. So I'm stuck with a free comments service (Enetation, which is down at the moment too, upgrading ITS hardware) until I decide doing this is worth spending even more money han I already do.

Once that happens, though, MT is it.