This Monday (27th November 2023) I noticed that I had a problem using the comment box on Cliscep. (This is Richard Drake writing but posting as Scepticus. I’ll explain in a moment why.) Others also told me by email that they had had problems commenting for a day or two – though not necessarily the same problems. All a bit baffling.

This thread is for anyone to share if they are having technical difficulties of any kind in reading or contributing to Cliscep. We will try to shed light and point to solutions if you do.

In due course the main people at the centre of the blog (not really me, these days) will I hope make this post a succinct guide as to how to use Cliscep if you’re new here, or even if you’re not. And to continue to highlight problems, as and when they arise.

That’s why it’s attributed to Scepticus. Please be as kind as possible in the comments. If you can actually make a comment, of course. (An email will be provided as well, in due time.)

[Image: the great Heath Robinson]

65 Comments

  1. Richard,

    Thanks for this. I hope it proves useful, given that WordPress seems to have been causing substantial problems recently. I had a day or two of difficulties that resolved themselves fairly quickly, with no input on my part. Generally speaking I don’t have problems commenting, but I am permanently logged in to WP.

    Like

  2. Thanks Mark. Yes, the solution this time seems to have been “Wait until WordPress.com sort it out.” Same has been true for me. But I thought it would be good to have a place for tech-specific issues and questions in future.

    As an aside, when I tried to email you today I got

    Your message wasn’t delivered to [censored]@tiscali.co.uk because the address couldn’t be found or is unable to receive email.

    It never rains but it pours, eh.

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  3. I am no longer able to comment, nor even to load the site, on Firefox (Windows 8.1). I am now using Chrome on the same system, and at the moment, it is working.

    By force of habit I always copy the text of a comment to the clipboard, in case it vanishes.

    On a side note, I did not receive a notification of this post by email – the first time this has happened, because I am of course subscribed.

    Like

  5. My varying experiences of commenting on various sites show that WordPress is the only common factor.

    The glitches are variable. I find I’m often unable to ‘Like’ a posting via CS’s site, but can via WP’s site. That issue also occurs with another site I follow regularly.

    I’ve learnt by experience to ‘save-to-clipboard’ what I’ve composed on CS before hitting’ Reply. If ‘my’ reply doesn’t appear, I know I’ll have no difficulty then pasting it directly into WP’s version of CS.

    On occasions, that then seems to resurrect the original reply, so two copies of the same reply appear! 🤔

    Sometimes a reply gets trapped in moderation.

    Nowt however, deters me from returning or commenting on CS!

    Keep up your good work, team.

    Liked by 2 people

  6. Jit: Very weird. And thanks for giving those details of your ‘platform’ eg Firefox (Windows 8.1) as you describe the problem. I find it hard to believe that WordPress has given up on support for Firefox. I would hope this is a temporary glitch. We’ll see.

    Jaime: Your first link is to what I (and sometimes WP) call the Reader View (in this case for this post). For example, after the list of Open Mic changes in the right hand margin of any page, I’ve now put:

    The Reader View can be useful for long Open Mic pages. Our Tech Notes should explain more, before long.

    Meaning I ultimately want this page to explain the distinction between ‘normal’ and Reader View – for newcomers and indeed all-comers. I assume Reader View is what Joe Public means by “WP’s version of CS”. More anon.

    Joe:

    Nowt however, deters me from returning or commenting on CS!

    Keep up your good work, team.

    Appreciate that attitude!

    Liked by 2 people

  7. Jaime (furthermore): I first read your comment on my iPhone and on clicking your first link Safari asked if I wanted to download and use the Jetpack app to read it, which I did, making the experience of ‘Reader View’ really rather different from the one I’m used to on my Mac.

    This is the kind of thing that makes explanations for the less technically proficient quite challenging. But it is the reason people should at least make clear their platform (eg Chrome on Windows 8, Safari on Mac, Chrome on Android) when they report a problem.

    Liked by 1 person

  9. This is a test post (using Safari on Mac) to see what happens when I click on ‘Reply’ (the blue box). According to the LH box below this I’m currently logged on. My next post here will recount my experience with this one.

    PS: I have never had a problem with Paul Homewood’s site. Nor with Jo Nova’s or Judith Curry’s – although I haven’t posted on either for some time.

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  10. Well – I hit reply and it appeared instantly! I also had no problem liking two of Richard’s posts above – previously I had to go to the WP home page to do this.

    So far so very good.

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  11. My comments apply via Safari in macOS.

    This ‘reply’ to me had to be made via the WP site; the CS web page offers to opportunity to “reply”. 🤔

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  12. Oh – comments on the CS webpage appear in chronological order – oldest first.

    Comments on the WP page appear most-recent first! (EXCEPT – when they’re a reply)

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  13. Joe: Your last two comments (chronologically speaking) I can see on this thread (in Normal View) but not under New Comments (in https://cliscep.com/ ie the Home Page in Normal View). My guess from past experience is that once I post here both will appear there.

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  14. Indeed, that is what happened. All in what I’m calling Normal View as opposed to Reader View.

    There are lots of weirdnesses here. But I’m off to church so I’ll keep the expletives to a minimum!

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  16. Yep, thanks Jaime, worth knowing. Ian Woolley doesn’t post much these days but is a keen user of Brave. All variations are useful I think.

    My current feel is that WordPress.com (strictly separate from WordPress.org) is sorting out a major internal change to their codebase. They do have bugs and they’re dealing with the main parts of the pie first, like Chrome. With Brave based on Chromium you’re probably pretty safe compared to Jit using Firefox on a older version of Windows. But, if I’m right, when they’ve ironed out the bugs for Chrome, Safari and Microsoft Edge, they will fix Firefox as well.

    I’m guessing there. Are there any announcements in the midst of such turmoil? There was nothing on the WordPress.com support pages when people from various blogs were complaining of similar problems to ours from Monday onwards. So we’re left to guess.

    Liked by 1 person

  20. Further oddities: I did not get an email to tell me there was a new post, which I was naturally aware of, having posted it myself. Anyone get the email alert?

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  21. I see – I think. After one of the updates, you had to re-subscribe. I’ll find out the facts of this when next someone posts a note.

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  22. Jit: I get an email notification for everyone who subscribes to Cliscep. (I’m the site owner, from WP’s perspective, and this may be why.) So just now I got this …

    New subscriber!
    Jit just subscribed to Climate Scepticism.
    They will receive an email every time you publish a post.

    The point being that for some days, maybe weeks, I’ve been noticing familiar old names subscribing – people who I’m sure had done so previously.

    “After one of the updates” is I’m sure right. “Stupid bug” is another possible description.

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  24. Something I’ve noticed at William M Briggs’ site (a WordPress site). I’ve been commenting on a post there. The home page gives a number of comments for each post. Sometimes when I open the home page, it shows a lower number of comments for the post I’m commenting on. When I click on the post, sometimes it will have the latest comments and sometimes it won’t. If they aren’t there, I don’t have any luck pushing the circular reload button at the upper left on Chrome (Windows 10). If I close the tab and reload, they usually show up (I’ve had to do this more than once on occasion).

    Liked by 1 person

  25. Mike: Yep, this is close to the mildly weird behaviour I tried to describe in my comment of 03 DEC 23 AT 6:41 PM and the comment a minute later (and have observed many times before). But not I think exactly the same behaviour.

    I say mildly weird because such inconsistent effects are ironed out within a short period. I think!

    Liked by 1 person

  27. Having had a week or so when there was no problem – permanently logged on with comments and likes appearing immediately – I’m now back to having to log on each time I comment (despite apparently being ‘logged in’ according to the legend below the ‘Leave a Reply’ box).

    Liked by 1 person

  28. Robin: The ‘LIke’ is a like of sympathy! That’s Safari on Mac as before?

    I’ve no idea why it’s dropping your cookies on Safari. (The cookies are how one remains ‘signed in’ to any such site as wordpress.com.)

    Like

  30. Richard,

    My attempt to (re-)subscribe (twice, the first one having failed) has been unsuccessful, generating two emails from WP with this message:

    The list of subscribers you added to your site seems to have triggered our security filters. Sorry for the hassle!

    It’s nothing to worry about, and our Support team is on hand to help get you back on track….

    Liked by 1 person

  33. Joe Public said the following on 9 Jan 24 (full copy)

    “Sometimes I think understanding Sykes–Picot is a doddle compared to WordPress.”

    Absolutely. Hence the precaution of copying intended posts to the clipboard before hitting ‘send’ 😉

    What I can’t understand why, if WordPress dumps my posts via your webpage into Spam, it doesn’t do likewise via WP.

    Incidentally, I’m WP prevents me from liking (some) comments on your webpage, but never via WP.

    For info & NOT a reflection on CliScep, but I have far more WP issues on CliScep than any other WP site I use regularly. e.g. NaLoPKT.

    Thanks again for rescuing my original! 👍

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  34. I’m going to comment on that in due course and wanted it here ready. But basically on the “far more WP issues on CliScep” bit we have no idea why. And we’d love to.

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  35. Looks like <blockquote> doesn’t do anything any more. I’ll close it just in case the change is temporary.</blockquote>

    Looks like you now have to use / to select paragraph type, or use the menu. Discovered via my comment at Let’s Play Only Connect.

    Also, as the above paragraph shows, there is no monkeying around with “a href” tags for now because you can select the “link” icon above the comment box.

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  36. Jit,

    I’m glad you raised this, as I have been struggling with comments for a day or two now. Bizarrely, the glitch doesn’t seem to have appeared while I’m typing this comment. It seems to be hit and miss (though more hit than miss).

    Like

  37. A/B testing is a deliberate use of hit/miss. This doesn’t have to be A/B testing though, just incremental rollout of the new. And I’m seeing the fateful new here.

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  38. I have just had to release one of my own comments (on a different thread) from spam. That’s the first time that has happened!

    Liked by 2 people

  39. Richard/Mark – Are you saying that comments on this site go through wordpress & can be kicked into a spam folder without the site owners permission?

    so you have to check the spam folder daily to sort comments?

    ps – only good news is I seem to be able to “like” comments for the 1st time 🙂

    Like

  40. dfhunter,

    Yes, that’s about it. So long as I’m not busy doing other things I check spam daily, sometimes several times a day. And comments are regularly put there by WP that are inoffensive by any measure, and have to be released by me (or others). The good news is that we can override the algorithm (or whatever it is) that puts the comments in spam in the first place, and releasing them is very easy.

    Liked by 1 person

  42. Help needed! I am trying to escape the clutches of WordPress.

    I have deleted my account, per their procedure. However, when I try to post a comment here (and on NALOPKT) I am asked to sign in to WordPress.

    For now I am using a slightly-changed username and a different email.

    Like

  43. Mike H, I am afraid this seems to be a recurring problem, and we have been here before. It’s above my pay grade. I hope that Jit or Richard might be able to help.

    Like

  44. Mark; Thanks – I feared that would be the case. I’m a total technonumpty so I may as well continue with my (slightly) new persona. I only signed up with WordPress because I thought it would make posting a litte easier and quicker. Then I saw it appear in the top scrollbar which looked like tracking so I deleted it, little realising that it’s rather Hotel California!

    Like

  45. Mike, why did you have to delete your account? I fear I’m missing something.

    What OS/ browser are you using? Does the problem occur on all your devices/browsers? I found that when Firefox stopped working, Chrome carried on (Win 8.1).

    There is also the option of Reader View.

    Like

  46. I’ve never been on any website which is so buggy as WordPress. It’s like they employ software engineers who wake up each morning and immediately think: “Hmmm, what should I bugger around with today?”

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  47. Jit: thanks for picking this up. I have already replied to Mark earlier but the comment has not appeared – I expect it’s fallen into Spam as I did get a few comments posted using by changed details.

    I use Firefox on a very old desktop running Windows 7……let the mockery start!!

    Last week I subscribed to WordPress thinking it would make posting a little quicker and easier. Then I saw that it seemed to be linking to other sites where I post sometimes and I decided I would rather not be tracked so deleted it. I expected it to be straightforward but it seems to have “klingon” properties. I’m not going to fuss about it as my new “persona” seems to work OK – when it stays out of spam!

    Like

  48. MikeH: “I have deleted my account, per their procedure”

    Could you point to the URL which contained ‘their procedure’? That’s partly to shed light on the why question Jit raised.

    Mark: “It’s above my pay grade.”

    What have you and the others been hiding from me? 😉

    I only know of one grade. The real net zero.

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  50. Richard; I can’t point to anything! I was logged in to my account then, iirc, I clicked a few buttons to get to the option to delete my account. I don’t want to try and log back in because that might start some sort of reactivation.

    Thanks to all for the interest in helping but I’m happy to carry on using my “new persona”…just need to get out of Spam!!

    Like

  51. To add insult to injury, I have just released five of Mike’s comments from spam. Mike, I am afraid that WordPress really seems to dislike you. 😕

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  52. MikeH: Oh look, the newfangled Comment Box has made your moniker, copied from the heading of your latest reply to me, bold. But that’s trivia for another day.

    I doubt it’s better for you not to have a single WP account that is signed in ‘all the time’ – modulo WP having taken a dislike for you! But I’ll make any discussion of the details of that private, by email between a few of us. If you give permission. Expect a permission-seeking email shortly.

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  53. I suspect that WordPress doesn’t like Vinny either – I’ve just had to release his latest comment from spam, and it’s far from being the first time.

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  54. So it is possible to embed YouTube videos in comments still. A bit more long-winded but (I judge, maybe hastily) quite well thought through. This time. (The last time they tried to land all these various changes it was a tech, testing and PR disaster which led to this thread, then a total backdown from WP HQ.)

    (Video chosen: Thanks to Norman Fenton’s colleague Martin Neil for the pointer to a key moment four years ago in a piece on Saturday subtitled Did Prof Michael Levitt discover there was no pandemic?)

    Like

  55. just made a comment on another post & get this – “Your comment is awaiting moderation“

    first time I’ve seen that, anybody else getting the same?

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  56. dfh:

    yep we are, and the reason is that (I assume) you copied HTML text from Wikipedia and the internal links are now preserved when you do that. don’t want to say more now. mark has had same experience copy and pasting from the guardian. this changes things. but this time it’s not all for the bad.

    (I also freed your post from moderation, also known as spam.)

    Like

  57. Just commented on Robin’s thread, where I found that the old comment box had been reinstated, and the quote tags were necessary again. Then coming to Tech Notes, I find that the new comment box is still in place! Confused.

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  58. Jit: I’ve had a succession of the ‘new’ box of for least ten, including this one. It’s surprising you’ve been transported back but I’m currently relaxed about the ‘facts’ that

    • a permanent change is on the way
    • of WP’s server farm most have by now been migrated
    • the new is, this time, objectively better than the old.

    As implied by the quotes it’s stretching it to call these facts. Best guesses is all we have.

    Like

  60. Is there some way of removing a “Like” that I have made inadvertently? I’m left-handed and find that I have “liked” several of my own comments – oops! – simply because the “Like” star is so close to the left side of the screen. Thank you. Regards, John.

    Like

  62. Richard, thank you. Simple as that … which is odd since I thought I had tried such a obvious fix. Oops again! Regards, John C.

    Liked by 2 people

  64. ‘Everyone should read and ponder this letter. It says a lot about what the European Union

    aspires to be:’

    I love Octopussy, his arms are so long ———————————————————

    Liked by 1 person

  65. The Free Speech Union is onto it

    https://twitter.com/SpeechUnion/status/1824041547228455245

    Try again

    The FSU obviously deleted the original tweet I wanted to embed and replaced it.

    I have edited my comment accordingly.

    https://cliscep.com/2024/04/13/the-several-other-solar-giants/#comment-154214

    There are a number of issues raised here.

    Like

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