Top Comments: Some Tips to Make DK 5 a bit Easier

This is my very first official DK 5 diary (I had the privilege of writing the last one in DK 4). It’s been quite the experience (particularly didn’t like having to write it twice since every attempt to save it resulted in an error pop-up — “There was an error with updating the editor"). I finally decided to try in a different browser (Chrome) which I didn’t like at all. So tonight, color me cranky.

I tried writing a diary and even an edition of Top Comments on the beta site. I surrendered. What used to be a simple process that I’ve done 584 times was a nightmare of fighting a new and not intuitive or helpful writing tool. While loving the new formatting options available for diaries and comments, I got bogged down by the process itself; fighting with technology that should be my friend and not an obstacle. My difficulty should be with expressing myself with words, not fighting with the tools. It’s still the latter.

Copying the Top Comments Template into a New Diary was once the easiest thing I did. Now it’s a technological war zone. Ditto formatting comments (no, I can’t even copy and paste the title of the diary or the name of the commenter anymore). And clicking a comment link or the date time stamp doesn’t necessarily lead to the comment or link (more on how I did that below).

Yes, I submitted beta feedback and problem reports and monitored for response (none). I did what I could in my forays into beta to make it better to no avail. Now what was beta is here and, hopefully, being fixed. Until then, we struggle on. Workarounds have become essential.

I don’t blame the tech staff. They’re overworked, likely underpaid, and simply following orders.

What’s really needed aside from numerous fixes is a User Manual. Even the Need Help link on the diary creation page takes me to a DK 4 tutorial on writing a diary. With one unavailable, I’ve found some help in the comments sections of DK 5 diaries and a few I’ve found or created on my own. I’ll share them below the story break (yes, I miss you beloved orange cheese curl) below to lift some of your burdens.

But First, A Word From Our Sponsor:

Problem: Finding new comments

Finding new comments is tough. That little orange dot that identifies new comments doesn’t survive long after it scrolls onto the bottom of a page.

Solution: Use the J (letter J) key to take you to the next new comment. The K (letter K) key takes you to the previous new comment.

Yes, you’re inefficiently moving from the mouse to the keyboard as you move to a new comment to read/recommend it, but that’s the best I can do for you right now.

 Problem: I get dumped at the bottom of the comments when I add a comment

Solution: Use your keyboard’s HOME key to return you swiftly to the top. Yes, you’ll have to scroll through the entire diary to once again arrive at the comments section so you can read the comments, but it’s usually easier and faster than scrolling up through a large comment section.

Problem: I get dumped randomly inside of a comment section when I want to view a comment of mine

Sometimes it’s easier to use the “find on this page” browser tool to locate your entry rather than scrolling around looking for it. Searching a few words you remember or even on your user name makes it easier than all the scrolling, particularly if a comment section is massive.

Problem: The Front Page Recommended List doesn’t have a Next Page option

Solution: Make use of your Messages Page (yes, you read that right). In the upper right hand corner of DK 5, click on the envelope and on the messages page that comes up you’ll find the DK 4 style Recommended List that includes the Next Page option on the right hand side underneath your profile. It also gives you a short Recent List that also includes Next Page.

Helpful in case you’ve had a day off the computer or need to see something that fell off the Rec List that you didn’t have the opportunity to read.

Alternatively, you can also use your own Profile Page  (select View/Edit My Profile from the drop down menu on the upper right hand corner of DK 5). Once there, use your old profile to access your message page.

Problem: Too Hard to Find My Groups and Group Queue

Solution: I find myself going to my old profile page and working from there (see directly above on how to get there). I can access a lot of things there instead of trying to spin my wheels figuring out how to do it in DK 5 without a User Manual. It’s particularly helpful to find information on your groups and queue. The new link to My Groups in the drop down menu isn’t helpful.

Problem: I don’t want some huge, gi-normous picture on top of my diary

Solution: Ignore the top part of a diary draft and it’s invitation to post a picture. Instead, post your picture at the top of the diary, but underneath the formatting tools. It will still be large (try left or right justification to shrink it), but not as huge as it would be if you add it to the very top image section.

Problem: Clicking on the date/time stamp of a comment doesn’t give me the comment link

Solution: If I need a direct comment link to submit a Top Comment, I’ve found that Right Clicking the date time stamp and opening it up into a new window is the only way that works.

Problem: Can’t find a way to send a message to a group

Solution: Find the group you want to message and bring up the group Profile Page. The Send Message option is available there. Cumbersome, but it works. It’s not available on the regular group page as it was in the past.

Sadly, I have no workaround for the white-space eye strain headache, those great big fonts with teeny rec stars, getting taken to the middle of a comment section instead of the comment you requested to see, or the myriad of other problems or concerns that we have. We can only hope and pray that they get fixed soon because I’d like to fight with Scott Walker and the rest of the Republican clowns more than I fight to get stuff done or read around here.

One piece of good news I can share, however, is that one of my current trouble tickets has been answered. It is apparently a high priority to get Diary Preview back. It’s necessary for us to be able to check on a how a diary will look after publication and to verify that links are not only correct, but working properly since they neither display or are fully available in draft mode.

Please share any other Tips and Tricks you’ve discovered in the comments. You’ll help others and feel good about it.

Host Note: Due to the problems of complete diary loading to view a comment and/or being dropped in a random place in the comment section, I am including the text of submitted comments along with the link. Yes, this might prevent a Top Commenter from receiving a well-deserved Rec, but will ensure maximum viewers for that comment

Additionally, I have formatted all comment links to open in the SAME WINDOW.

Submitting this comment from Otterary Scribe.

I am pretty sure you have heard the song by Dave Van Ronk on the matter of balls. All really good anti-war songs have a very large kernel of truth.

Kids growing up on a diet of sanitized video war games don’t have a clue. One thing in particular they don’t know is the smell. Too bad those video games don’t have Smell-O-Vision so they could get a strong whiff of putrescence mixed with cordite.  But I suppose that would decrease sales, and we can’t have that.  Personally, I think the smell should be synthesized and pumped into the HVAC system in Congress every time a big military funding bill comes to a vote.

 From Morning Open Thread: Is There Really a TRADITIONAL THANKSGIVING? by officebss.

ivorybill's great comment on MB's fine diary, Those who laugh off Sanders' linking climate change to terrorism are the ones who should be mocked, explains in detail the link between climate change and terrorism in the Middle East. I learned so much from it and it deserves a wider audience.

Actually, the rise of ISIL is very much related to climate change. Let me explain:

Historically, the Kurds and Yezidis along the northern tier of the Jazirah — the area where Syria and Iraq meet — occupied the areas in which rainfall would result in good crops of wheat in four out of every five years or so. The Arabs historically were mostly pastoralists, or lived in areas along the rivers, or in areas in which dryland grain production was possible in 2 out of 3 years and everyone had to have other ways to make a living — mostly livestock.  This line falls right between Sinjar (Yezidi) and Baaj (Arab) and it falls just south of Hasakah in Syria (mostly Kurdish and Christian) and the Daesh heartland to the South.  The complete destruction of this drier belt of agriculture due to drought not only displaced many low income Arabs in this dryland agriculture belt, but also made them covet the higher rainfall Kurdish and Christian lands in the northern Jazirah.  One of the biggest sources of revenue for Daesh has been confiscated property — nearly all of it Christian and Yezidi, and quite a lot of it has been agricultural land.  Daesh came about in part because of climate displacement and maintains itself in power in part by occupying and distributing land in higher rainfall areas.

In fact, this is common knowledge in the region. When the dust storms blow up from Syria, it’s pretty routine for the Kurds to blame it on Arab farming practices and environmental destruction due to drought.

At the beginning of the drought, the Syrian government did not adequately compensate or protect the hundreds of thousands of farmers forced off the land.  This huge urban transition really fueled the protests.  The expansionist policies of Daesh are religious, true, but also related to a desire to occupy agricultural land.  And Daesh also attempts to control water resources — one of the biggest fights since 2014 has been over the control over Mosul Dam and this is precisely because the US and the Iraqi Government and the Kurds don’t want Daesh to control a major source of irrigation water required by everyone downstream.  The climate-change induced drought makes the control over these reservoirs even more important.

This great comment by Chico David RN.

Thanks.  It’s the very people who prattle most about the “Home of the Brave” who seem to live in a constant state of quivering fear.

From Republicans really excited to have other people fight and pay for their war! by Kos.

This bit of snarkitude by chuckvw.

Woe betide the bearer of uncomfortable truths. Platitudinous triangulation is coin of the realm.  

From Those who laugh off Sanders' linking climate change to terrorism are the ones who should be mocked by Meteor Blades.

How incredible is this? For an explanation of How Top Mojo Works, see mik's FAQing Top Mojo

Thank you jotter for the awesome image magic!