April 1, 2013

Blog issues

Not sure if this affects everybody but in the last few days I noticed that the (unclicked) links in the blog are being displayed in plain blue color that strongly contrasts with the overall theme of the blog in a quite ugly manned. I have revised the template a couple of times and even gone through the HTML code and can't find any error, so either Blogger is doing something strange or my browser needs updating. I'd be glad to get feedback on this: do you see unclicked links blue or (as it should be) of an ochre color?

Update on the color issue (Apr 3): it was caused by HTML code in the table at the end of the Italian Neanderthal mtDNA entry. Only pages with that entry displayed links in blue. The specific code, which was surgically removed once detected was:

A:link { color: rgb(0, 0, 255); }

Thanks to all people who produced feedback but very specially to Toos, without whose help I would have never detected the source of the problem.

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Comment moderation

I'm still licking the emotional wounds caused by trolls (not just here but also elsewhere) and therefore, in order to be able to better enjoy this vacation, I have decided to keep preliminary comment moderation for a bit longer. My most sincere apologies to all commenters of good will but what I  really need some rest. I also have very clear that I will not tolerate anymore any trollish behavior, even if camouflaged. I will however issue warnings for those who are not extreme but I will also apply the baseball rule: three strikes and you're out. 

I realize that satisfactory discussion environment needs of some "gardening", what means getting rid as soon as possible of the undesirable weeds. Even if the overall number of comments falls down, that is not necessarily a bad thing, although not my objective at all.

Internet trolls playing their sick and stupid mind games (source)

9 comments:

  1. The unclicked links do appear blue on my browser as well. Strange thing is that the links on the sidebar are blue when I am on homepage and red when I am on the post page.

    Maybe google decided to play an all fool's day prank on you :)

    BTW, Did you notice that Google has decided to display sitelinks for your Blog? http://support.google.com/webmasters/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=47334

    You should be happy about it. Never been able to achieve that for one of my blogs.

    ReplyDelete
  2. "Strange thing is that the links on the sidebar are blue when I am on homepage and red when I am on the post page".

    Quite right. So it's certainly not my browser... I'm still quite perplex.

    "BTW, Did you notice that Google has decided to display sitelinks for your Blog?"

    I read it and classified it as "too complicated" and "incomplete information". What the heck is a "sitelink" and why should I care? Is that what is causing the horrible blue color?

    Thanks for your feedback in any case. Much appreciated.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Using Firefox 18.0 I do not see any blue links.

    sitelinks direct links to different sections of your web site displayed in google search results. Search for "for what they were we are" in google to see examples.

    Garvan

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    Replies
    1. Thanks for the info, very interesting. May it be an issue of Firefox 19.0.2 (my version, on Linux)? Maybe something of the default preferences? Jhangora did not mention which his browser is but someone else who emailed me and also sees the blue links uses Firefox.

      I still don't understand well what sitelinks are, if I would have to enable them or what (I see no difference as of now)... Maybe an example would be useful.

      Delete
  4. I'm using Firefox Version 3.6.8 on Ubuntu 10.04 LTS. Want to upgrade to the New LTS version of Ubuntu and Firefox but the guy who installed Ubuntu on my system no longer supports it and my hometown does not have many people who are well versed with Linux.

    Please go through the link I provided in my earlier comment to understand what Sitelinks are. It is an automated process. I'd like to think it is some sort of confirmation by Google that your Blog is one of the better ones.

    However, the links provided @ the bottom are for the Months of August 2011, July 2012, October 2010 and December 2012. If I were you - I'd try and ask members on Google Support Forums how to optimize them and display Sitelinks for Post Archives of the most recent Months.

    Would be more useful for visitors who land on this Blog through Google Searches.

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    Replies
    1. You should be able to upgrade automatically if you specify regular upgrades (every 6 months, which is relatively convenient). However I can't find where to specify that anymore, so I guess you should search and/or ask at Ubuntu forums. You'll probably get all the help you may need over there, with a bit of patience.

      I went through the sitelinks link you provided, but as I said, I understood nothing. I'll get acquainted eventually but I may need to make some searches.

      Delete
  5. I had a similar link color issue and never figured out how to solve it before my most recent color splurge in templates (despite complaints that one of my blogs now looks like Georgia O'Keefe vomit).

    "I will also apply the baseball rule: three strikes and you're out."

    Do Europeans use the baseball reference? Are there European aphorisms that are used to express a similar sentiment (perhaps with some different small number of "strikes")? Or, is three strikes and your out pretty much a purely American cultural reference point?

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    Replies
    1. Thanks for your feedback, Andrew.

      "Do Europeans use the baseball reference? Are there European aphorisms that are used to express a similar sentiment (perhaps with some different small number of "strikes")? Or, is three strikes and your out pretty much a purely American cultural reference point?"

      No to the first question, no to the second question, probably yes to the third question.

      Brits have a baseball-like sport: cricket, but I have no idea about the rules. For what I've heard major matches may last a whole weekend. The main European sport reference is football (soccer), with words like "penalty", "offside" ("fuera de juego" in Spanish, what translates as "out of the game") and "red card" being common in language. However the football rule is two yellow cards = one red card (out), so it would not apply unless I want to be draconian.

      It just seem reasonable that if you get three subsequent warnings, you are more severely punished. Of course, a warning now and another a year later would not be the same, context matters.

      Neither you nor most commenters ever really gave me pretext for any such severity: the ones at fault are clearly few in number.

      Delete
  6. Found the problem (thank to Toos) and solved it. Check the update for the details. Thanks for your interest in any case.

    ReplyDelete

Please, be reasonably respectful when making comments. I do not tolerate in particular sexism, racism nor homophobia. Personal attacks, manipulation and trolling are also very much unwelcome here.The author reserves the right to delete any abusive comment.

Preliminary comment moderation is... ON (your comment may take some time, maybe days or weeks to appear).