Just a note to let readers know that due to travel of one elf and the combination of work pressures and serious "technical difficulties" of a second, our elfing capacity is seriously limited this week (and in fact has been stretched way too thin for 4 or 5 weeks). It looks like I (elf girl) may be restored to normal high speed internet access within 2 - 3 days and so I hope to be able to resume more normal "elfing" then. In the meantime:

1. We please ask our commenters to be particularly careful of what you write. Perhaps a policy of "self-elfing" could be practiced?
2. If you have story ideas, please send them directly to Kendall (his e-mail is linked on the sidebar under the "About the Blog" section).
3. Please be patient with any requests for administrative / technical help or research assistance. It's honestly likely that I won't get to look at those for another 2 days, and there is already a big backlog.

Thanks very much for your patience and understanding.

Filed under: * Admin

As we're sure many of our readers have noticed, we've had some issues with the timestamps of posts and comments being incorrect over the past week both here at TitusOneNine as have our friends and colleagues at StandFirm, with whom we share a server. Some comment threads have gotten quite confusing because the comment numbers and sequence have been unstable, with "replies" sometimes winding up above the comment which prompted the reply!

While our fearless tech leader is working on finding the cause and solution, we suggest you read this comment which I left on a thread earlier today. It offers suggestions on how to help minimize confusion in the comment threads should the sequence get jumbled (i.e. how to link to the comment to which you are replying).

Also, it gives you the link to the place in your account page where you can verify that your timezone and daylight savings time setting (if applicable) are correct.

Hope this is helpful. If questions persist, feel free to e-mail us at: T19elves@yahoo.com.

--elfgirl

Filed under: * Admin • Blog Tips & Features

Greetings T19 commenters,

Over the weekend we have had two threads which were rendered extremely difficult to read in some browsers by the posting of long links that overflowed the boundary of the comment box and caused subsequent comments to also runover into the sidebar. Unfortunately this elf who normally handles most of these types of tech problems was offline from Thursday afternoon - midday Sunday.

A couple of suggestions/requests:
1) Please avoid pasting long links in the comments. Learn how to use sites like tinyurl.com, or how to make a link using the bulletin board code (a kind of simplified HTML code) specified in the "help" section of the comment box. If you need help, feel free to e-mail the elves and we'll be glad to assist.

2) If you notice a thread where there is an overflow comment that is messing up the formatting, please send a heads up to the elves e-mail box: T19elves@yahoo.com

Often, even if we don't have time to read the threads, we do check the e-mail. That way any of us elves or Kendall can fix the offending comment and the blog formatting will be restored.

Thanks!

--elfgirl

Filed under: * Admin

Good morning all.
Because we were offline most of yesterday from mid-morning onwards, when we logged in this morning, we had quite a full inbox and many of those queries concerned Anglican Mainstream and the problematic link Kendall posted yesterday to "CoE, Who's In, Who's Out?"

It is our understanding that Anglican Mainstream is in the middle of a site transfer, so the website access problems you are having are not due to hacking.
We'll keep you posted as to when they are back online and any new bookmarks that might be needed.

In the meantime, via Google's Cache, we were able to pull up the article Kendall had posted that was no longer available via the link he included. You can find it in the comments below: http://www.kendallharmon.net/t19/index.php/t19/article/9193/#171042

--elfgirl

Filed under: * Admin

We've unstickied the long San Joaquin discussion thread. You can find it here.

Filed under: * Admin • * Anglican - Episcopal • Episcopal Church (TEC) • TEC Conflicts • TEC Conflicts: San Joaquin

Comments are closed.

It occurs to us in the busyness of life the past few weeks, we elves have been seriously remiss in not posting the links to the alternate (backup blogs -- perhaps soon to be permanent blogs) of many of the Anglican sites hosted by Classical Anglican Net which suffered serious hacking about 2 weeks ago, and which is still offline as a result.

Mike Daley of CaNNet is still working to restore the blog databases and partitions, and hopes to have the blogs backup as soon as possible, perhaps within a few days. But in the meantime, please note these links. Our apologies for the delay in posting these!

Brad Drell: http://descant.wordpress.com/

Confessing Reader: http://confessingreader.wordpress.com/

Lent & Beyond: http://anglicanprayer.wordpress.com/

Rather Not Blog: http://idrathernotsay123.wordpress.com/

Surrounded (Diocese of San Joaquin): http://sanjoaquin.wordpress.com/

As for the archives of the old Titusonenine site, most posts can be accessed either by using the Google Cache feature, or by using an internet archive site like "The Wayback Machine." Feel free to e-mail the elves if you need help finding something or accessing something on the old blog.

And please keep Mike Daley in prayer as he works to restore the CaNNet blogs. Even if all or most of the blogs make the switch to new sites, having access to their archives is important. Thanks.

Filed under: * Admin • * Resources & Links • Resources: blogs / websites

It wasn't until clicking the links on a posting at Stand Firm earlier today that we discovered that the Diocese of Michigan has posted an editorial about TitusOneNine's post of a picture from the Diocese of Michigan's convention.

Here's what the Diocese of Michigan wrote:

There was a spate of criticism—unfounded, I found—from a corner of the conservative blogosphere about a snapshot of our diocesan convention that showed the placard of the eight MDGs behind the altar during the Eucharist. If you must investigate further, you’ll might find the discussion HERE. If the blog thread is removed, better judgment may have slipped in upon them before this commentary did.

The bloggers misinterpreted our intention—as gently suggested online by a priest in our diocese—thinking we had replaced the crucifix with the MDGs. The rambling comment section devolves to less-than-insightful rants on Karl Marx and the United Nations. But the kernel of concern is worth reflecting upon.

The millennium development goals are not canon; they are invitations into deeper relationships, deeper understanding. In order to embrace the mdgs—or rather be embraced by them—we must prepare ourselves not to march triumphantly but to walk humbly. We must truly empty ourselves of those things that lead us to feel haughty. Like a Pharisee. With a blog.

Even though the author, presumably Diocesan Communications Director Herb Gunn, criticizes TitusOneNine in that piece, I don't believe he contacted us or left a comment about his concerns, so this is the first we'd heard from the Diocese of Michigan. (It is possible of course that Mr. Gunn contacted Kendall without my knowing.) As I made clear in the post in question, as one who tries to help Kendall cover the diocesan convention news, I (elfgirl) was responsible for the post, not Kendall. So let me offer a few comments in response.

First, Mr. Gunn confuses "bloggers" and "commenters." He accuses the "bloggers" (that in this case would be me, elfgirl) of saying or intending something we never said or intended. In fact we explicitly stated our intentions several times on the thread itself, and provided many supporting links to further the discussion along the lines of what we had intended.

Secondly, I never claimed the MDG banner was a deliberate replacement for the cross. I made no comment about the intent of the Diocese of Michigan. I merely noted that I found the photo "irresistible" as a striking visual image. In fact, I acknowledged previous comments that the juxtaposition and symbolism was probably unintentional.

We (I) always acknowledged the fact that the actual intent was probably not to have the MDG banner as a reredos, but that the unintended juxtaposition, and the Diocese of Michigan's prominent photo on their convention coverage page, symbolized a larger issue. Unfortunately Mr. Gunn didn't take the time to respond to any of the substantive concerns (about the mission priorities of TEC, not the Diocese of Michigan's convention, per se) raised in the comment thread. Instead he pretty much dismisses the whole entry and caps off his editorial with an insult. The talking past one another continues.

--elfgirl

Filed under: * Admin • * Anglican - Episcopal • - Anglican: Commentary • Episcopal Church (TEC) • TEC Conflicts

Comments are closed.

Hi all. As we noted in the comments on one of the threads below, we were having trouble accessing the Living Church's website earlier today. We've since learned via e-mail that those problems were due to a site upgrade. We've just now been able to get into the new site and it looks terrific.

Here's the news page link:
http://www.livingchurch.org/site/news/

Here's a section for online exclusive features:
http://www.livingchurch.org/site/news/exclusives/

We're still having trouble accessing the TLC home page: http://www.livingchurch.org/, which is taking us to the TLC's hosting company instead. It may just take awhile for the site upgrade to "propagate" throughout the web, or we might need to clear out our browser cache.

Be sure to update your bookmarks for the new site. (The news page link is new, for instance). It looks terrific! Congrats and thanks to the TLC team.

Filed under: * Admin • * Resources & Links • Resources: blogs / websites

We seem to be having an increasingly frequent problem with folks pasting in URLs that are too long for the width of the comment box, which then blows out the margins and makes text overflow into the sidebar.

Thus, we'd like to request please don't paste long-links in the comments. If your link is long, use anchor codes to make a link. If you don't know how to do that, go to tinyurl.com and your long link will be transformed into a very short one you can copy and paste into your comment. Thanks!

Filed under: * Admin

As will be evident in this morning's entries (see the next 3 posts below), we're catching up on posting a batch of additional bishops' responses to the New Orleans' statement. Some of these statements are fairly new, some have been mouldering in our inbox for awhile. T19 and / or Stand Firm have now posted either excerpts or the full text to 40 bishops / dioceses' statements.

Note: BabyBlue has posted a list of statements we compiled last night. These are all the statements we've seen so far. (A total of 40 dioceses). So you can easily see what we're missing!

If your bishop has made a statement and it's not yet been posted, please e-mail us the text or the link: T19elves@yahoo.com

Thanks to all who are sending in such helpful links. Keep 'em coming.

Filed under: * Admin • * Anglican - Episcopal • - Anglican: Primary Source • -- Statements & Letters: Bishops • Episcopal Church (TEC) • TEC Bishops • Sept07 HoB Meeting

The great value of Titus One Nine to all of us, including this slightly to the left of center Episcopalian, has been the inclusion of all the "news fit to print" (and leaving out some which isn't) regarding the current challenges in the Episcopal Church. You have had the good grace to allow your readers to interpret that information as their intellect determined, until recently. In the days before the HOB meeting and subsequent to it there has been an increasing tendency to parenthetically comment on or reinterpret the input from various sources with whom you are not in explicit agreement. My belief is that this diminishes, not adds to, the value of the information. Many of your sources are unquestionably intellectually capable of making an interpretation of the current situation and the product of their efforts is their interpretation. Adding your editorial comment that they are in error in that interpretation is not terribly helpful as i t does not change their interpretation and they do have a right to that interpretation. It is no more right or wrong, inherently, than your own. So my advice is to go back to reporting the information and quit kibitzing.

But it is your blog and you are doing us all a considerable service by maintaining it, so thanks for that.

I would genuinely appreciate blog readers feedback on this, thanks--KSH.

Filed under: * Admin • Blog Tips & Features • * By Kendall

The servers are slowing down due to traffic. If you just want to check to see what's posted and what is drawing comment, PLEASE try using the "mobile" view -- headlines and comment totals: http://kendallharmon.net/t19/index.php/t19/mobile/

Oh: and it's probably a good idea to save your comment before hitting submit.

Update: we've reduced the number of entries displayed on the main page to 20. Just for today.

Filed under: * Admin

All we've had several reports that the T19 RSS feed is not working. It is working fine for this elf who reads the RSS feed in Bloglines. If you are having problems, please let us know what link you are using for your subscription, and what feed reader /aggregator you are using. Thanks.

This link is working fine for the elves in bloglines: http://www.kendallharmon.net/t19/index.php/t19/rss_2.0/
And this link is working fine for the Anglican News feed: http://kendallharmon.net/t19/index.php/t19/rss2.0_Anglican

Filed under: * Admin

Ok, all of you T19 fans out there HAD to know this was coming!! We're a bit slow on the draw, but yes, we've now created a blog category for the Sept07 HoB meeting. Here's the link.

So with one click now you can get all the latest news from New Orleans.

Don't forget, we also have an Anglican / Episcopal RSS feed.

Filed under: * Admin • Blog Tips & Features • * Anglican - Episcopal • Episcopal Church (TEC) • TEC Bishops • Sept07 HoB Meeting

Should page loading be slow for some readers given the heavy site traffic, try this:

To see the headlines at a glance, and the number of comments per post, go here:
http://kendallharmon.net/t19/index.php/t19/mobile/

Filed under: * Admin • Blog Tips & Features

To speed up page-loading and lighten the load on the servers in face of the extremely heavy blog traffic expected on T19 and Stand Firm for the next week or so, we've reduced the number of entries that now display on the main page. Instead of 50 entries, we've cut it in half to 25 entries per page.

You can still get to all the previous entries by following the link at the bottom of this page to view subsequent pages, or use the calendar at right to see all the entries from a given date.

We expect many visitors in these days. Should anyone be having registration problems, or need other technical assistance, please don't hesitate to contact us at T19elves [at] yahoo.com

Filed under: * Admin

Regular readers of the Anglican blogosphere, be they fans of blogs such as T19, Stand Firm, Drell, and BabyBlue on one "side" or EpiScope, Episcopal Cafe, Fr. Jake, and Susan Russell on the other "side," know things are buzzing right now. We're gearing up for the September TEC HoB meetings in New Orleans later this week (Sept 20-25), the Common Cause Bishops' Council in Pittsburgh immediately following, and the September 30 Dar es Salaam deadline. In some quarters, reports, responses, articles and pastoral letters are flying so fast and thick that it's dizzying and pretty much impossible to "read it all," no matter how often Kendall exhorts us to do just that!

But the buzz and news overload that those of us who follow the blogs are experiencing right now may be surprisingly limited in scope.

Your humble elf had more time for web browsing yesterday than any day in the last 2 months or so. It seemed like a good time to go on one of our periodic diocesan "news trawls." What is being said in the various dioceses that we don't hear from so often or read about much on the blogs? What responses have there been to the proposed covenant? What are bishops writing their flocks about the upcoming HoB meeting? etc. I knew from previous forays into diocesan website land that the results would be patchy. Some dioceses excel in timely communication, but many fail on that score. I expected that in a good number of dioceses the whole "Anglican crisis" and Dar deadline is being downplayed. But even I, an experienced denizen of diocesan websites, was surprised by what I found.

In the 4 hours I had free, I was able to visit the diocesan websites of 31 TEC dioceses. I focused on dioceses which I knew, from past experience, tended to have informative and relatively up-to-date websites. I purposely avoided some of the Network dioceses where there's been recent news and statements (such as Central FL, Fort Worth, San Joaquin, Pittsburgh, Quincy, etc.) We already know these dioceses are engaged in the current crisis. I tried to hit some of the biggest and most influential dioceses (Texas, Atlanta, New York...) and also many Camp Allen or reasonably moderate dioceses, as well as to get a good geographic mixture.

Here's a list of the diocesan sites I visited and what I found. A diocese received a "NO" if I could find nothing new about the TEC/Anglican situation since the March HoB meeting. (Legend: **Network diocese, *Camp Allen bishop)

Alabama - NO
** Albany - NO
Arizona - NO
Arkansas - NO
Atlanta - NO
California - NO
Colorado - NO
Connecticut - NO
** Dallas - YES -- a good selection of background links and resources, though most not very recent, nothing specific on the upcoming HoB meeting
East Carolina - NO
East Tennessee - YES -- a nice and quite current "Windsor Process" page
Florida - NO
Lexington - NOPE, surprising given +Sauls lead role in many recent reports, etc.
Los Angeles - Nothing since April
Massachusetts - NO
Mississippi -- YES. Pastoral letter from +Duncan Gray.
Newark - No
New York - Yes. Bishop's letter July / August (see p. 3), special 8 page insert in Dio. Newsletter
North Carolina - YES Big feature on "Communion Matters" meetings throughout the diocese on the homepage
* North Dakota - not really. A passing mention in Dio. Newsletter "pray for Sept HoB meeting"
* Northern Indiana - No (Bp. Little is on sabbatical, but will be attending HoB mtg)
Ohio - No
Rio Grande - YES Pastoral letter from +Steenson
SE Florida - Partial: Response by Executive board to Anglican Convenant (unclear if laity and parishes are engaged, however)
* SW Florida - Nothing new since May (surprising. SW FL is usually VERY current on news and info)
** Springfield - No
* Tennessee - No
* Texas - No
Upper SC - No
Virginia - NO
* West Texas - YES. Sept 2007 Audio message to diocese from Bp. Lillibridge

So, totalling up the YES column and the NO column:

Only 7 of 31 (or 8, if one counts SE Florida, which is somewhat borderline...) had anything substantive and current on the ECUSA/Anglican crisis. That's 25%. So of the nearly 1/3 of the ECUSA domestic dioceses surveyed (and I chose those which I know to have generally informative and regularly updated websites) it would appear that 75% of these dioceses are not getting out current info on the Anglican crisis. This includes Network dioceses (Albany and Springfield), and Windsor Dioceses (Northern Indiana, Texas, Tennessee, and SW Florida), as well as more reappraising dioceses. Big dioceses with lots of resources, and small dioceses. I have absolutely no reason to think that the dioceses I didn't survey are any better.

The lesson to draw from this: If you care about these issues and the decisions that lie ahead, share the news you read on this blog and others with your fellow parishoners, or friends in other dioceses, etc. Don't assume that the dioceses or other structures are getting the news out. There are many in TEC parishes who have no idea that there is a House of Bishops' meeting this week. If you care, share a few links and invite them to pray and get involved!

--elfgirl

Filed under: * Admin • * Anglican - Episcopal • - Anglican: Analysis • Episcopal Church (TEC) • TEC Bishops • Sept07 HoB Meeting • TEC Conflicts • TEC Data

The Rev'd Dr. Leander Harding has moved his blog. Here is the new address:
http://www.leanderharding.com/blog/

Please update your bookmarks! We've updated the link on the T19 sidebar.

Filed under: * Admin • * Resources & Links • Resources: blogs / websites

Read more...

Filed under: * Admin • Blog Tips & Features

Greg G. has let us know he is working on the problems with Stand Firm and the fatal error messages people are getting when trying to view any article there.
We'll post info here as we get it.

And of course, we have offered to post any articles from Stand Firm over here on T19 should the problems at SF persist.
============

Greg G. has posted this update over on SF.

Greg Griffith
Update on Technical Problems

The error everyone has been seeing on comment threads is due to a bug in our blog software's comment retrieval code that is seen whenever it tries to query a database with an exceedingly large number of comments. We have almost 90,000.

Upgrading a blog system, on the road, during a major event, is a recipe for nightmares, so it may not happen until I return to Jackson, where I can at least have my nightmares in my own bed. So for today, in order to bring you news, we're just going to have to go without comments. I apologize for the inconvenience.

============
Update: 10:20 Eastern

We can probably offer an Open Thread for comments on the Network Council live feed here on T19. I'll touch base with Greg & Kendall and will post an update shortly.

Filed under: * Admin

Over at Stand Firm, Greg Griffith has posted a brief update about a denial of service attack that affected the shared TitusOneNine / Stand Firm server early this morning. You can read the details, and should you be able and eager to do so, find information about how to contribute towards the combined server hosting costs here.

Note, that comment thread also contains info re: a backup site for Christopher Johnson's Midwest Conservative journal whose site also went down at a similar time, but appears to have been more severely affected. Hmmmm.....

This elf is very thankful for Greg's excellent blog admin support and especially for all his work in setting up a server with load balancing capacity that has been able to handle even the most outrageously busy news days in the Anglican blog world. Thanks Greg!

Now this elf will be "bossy" again! Go let Greg know how much you appreciate his hard work...! And please give if you can.

--elfgirl

Filed under: * Admin

For those who might be looking for a few chuckles and a light way to wind down an evening of reading the blogs.

Or those wanting to match wits with elfgirl and commenters like Sarah, Karen B., Irenaeus and others.

We present for your reading pleasure "Dueling Haikus and other bad poetry" (See comments 13 and following)

Filed under: * Admin

Filed under: * Admin

We've posted at least once, maybe twice before on the issue of HTML code and formatting in the comments. For whatever reason, HTML doesn't work well in the comments here. Don't know why or whether Greg G. will be able to fix it.

However, thanks to a very clever commenter, we've learned that what DOES work just fine is what's known as "Bulletin Board" code. In a week now, Bulletin Board code has worked perfectly for me every time I've tried it. Even with complex urls which contain spaces or "arguments" (like search queries).

For most formatting (bold, italics, underline, blockquote), Bulletin Board code is just like HTML except you use square brackets instead of angle brackets.

For links, however, the code is different. Here's how Bulletin Board code works for links. It's actually easier than HTML:

[url= the link ] the name [/url]

thus for a link to T19 it looks like this:
[url=http://www.kendallharmon.net/t19/]Titusonenine[/url]

You can read more here.

Filed under: * Admin

For those who may have been offline yesterday, here are recommendations to three posts from yesterday:

Ruth Gledhill's interview with Abp. Peter Akinola
Living Church Op-Ed: Confessions of an Episcopal Fundamentalist
4th of July Open Thread (it's not too late to contribute your own reflections!)

Filed under: * Admin

Just a heads up. This elf expects to be offline pretty much all day tomorrow, July 4th. Kendall has got at least one entry pre-posted. And we elves plan to post an Open Thread, and maybe one or two other entries. But that is likely to be it.

We're committed to doing all we can to keep the blog lively and to cover important news while Kendall is travelling. But due to work constraints, etc. some days we'll be more available than others. Thanks for understanding.

Filed under: * Admin

Many of us in the Anglican blogosphere have been saddened this week to learn that our friend and one-time fellow Anglican blogger (now a Roman Catholic) Fr. Al Kimel is giving up blogging for personal reasons. Pontifications has been one of the best theological blogs on the web, applauded by Catholics, Anglicans, Orthodox, with a very large and loyal readership.

It was near the top of the non-Anglican links list we've compiled, but haven't yet had a chance to format and post on our side-bar here.

We first read the news on Orthodox priest Fr. Stephen Freeman's blog, Glory to God for All Things, which Fr. Al introduced many of us to. Todd Granger, Brad Drell and Sarah Hey of Stand Firm all picked up the news and added their comments.

Just this morning, I read Ralph Webb's comments on his blog, Anglican Action.

Namarie indeed, Father Kimel. But as you say goodbye, do know that your faithful service to our Lord and your work to renew the Episcopal Church has not been in vain. You have inspired people who you do not know and who have never met you to stay faithful to our Lord and Savior. We remember your work on the Baltimore Declaration. In your departure from TEC, our loss was Rome's gain. We thank you for providing us with, for a few years, one of the most spiritually sound, astute, and challenging blogs out there. And if our Lord ever leads you to take up blogging again, many of us will be grateful.

May our Lord grant the healing that you need, for "the hands of a healer are the hands of a king" (Tolkien again, rough paraphrase from memory).

This elf says "Amen!" to all of what my fellow bloggers have written so eloquently, and adds my profound thanks to Fr. Al for Pontifications and all he contributed to TitusOneNine as well in many comment threads. And it is worth noting that Fr. Al's essay "The Grand Question" holds the records for most comments ever on TitusOneNine, with a staggering 561 comments!

May the Lord bless you and your family Fr. Al and grant you His peace.

----

Note: at least for the moment, it seems impossible to access Fr. Al's original blog (which was hosted by CaNNet), thus the original post of "the Grand Question" which Kendall excerpted and linked on Titusonenine, is not accessible online. Fortunately, Fr. Al seems to have preserved that entry on his page of entries on the theme of Justification on his new blog:

http://pontifications.wordpress.com/justification/
Look for entry # XXXIV which begins:

>XXXIV

The justification of sinners—this is “the grand question,” declared Richard Hooker, “which hangeth yet in controversy between us and the Church of Rome.” Hooker notes that Anglicans and Catholics agree on many points about justification. They agree that all human beings are sinners and need to be reconciled to God. They agree that God alone is the efficient cause of justification: the justification of sinners is the work of the Holy Trinity. They agree that no one attains justification but by the merits of Christ Jesus: we are justified by grace alone for the sake of Christ, on the basis of his saving death on the cross.

Filed under: * Admin • * Anglican - Episcopal • * Culture-Watch • Blogging & the Internet

Here are the answers to the T19 trivia quiz we posted this morning about the blog stats for the first month (and a few days) since we launched the new blog on May 22.

New blog: During the first 36 days

--648 entries. (about 18 per day)
--7400 comments (about 11 per post, or 205 per day)

The old CaNNet version of the blog first 36 days: (Jan / Feb 2004 -- note this was the second edition of Titusonenine. Kendall began blogging in March 2003 on Blogspot)

-- 328 posts (9 per day)
-- 2108 comments (6 per post, or 58 per day)

So, the new blog stats are about double that of the old CaNNet version of the blog at its launch.

Old blog: most comments in first month =76
Ann Van Dervoort: ALL WILL BE WELL after General Convention

New blog: most comments in first month = 138
A Seattle Episcopal Priest says: "I am both Muslim and Christian"

And there you have it. It's good to see the new blog off to a good start. Thanks to all who have helped to get it running (esp. Greg), and offered feedback and encouragement, and to all who participate in the discussions here.

Filed under: * Admin

A little quiz for our resident data geeks.

Anyone want to take a guess at the blog stats for the new blog since it began on May 22? (36 days)

How many blog entries?
How many comments?

And for extra credit: how does this compare with the debut of the old blog in Jan 2004?

We'll post the answers sometime Wed. evening.
We figured a little navel-gazing and number crunching might be relaxing after a very event-filled week or two in the Anglican blogosphere

Filed under: * Admin

Just realized there's a tech update we've been meaning to post for a few days, but have kept forgetting about.

We THINK that we've figured out a way to solve the problems with HTML code (bold, italics, blockquote formatting) not working consistently in the comments.

Use SQUARE BRACKETS [ ]
instead of the normal angle brackets < >

Thus, the code for bold text would be as follows:

[b] text you want in bold [/b]

We'll keep any eye on how this works. Hopefully it will solve the bizarre problem. Feel free to send us links if comments continue to have HTML problems.

IMPORTANT UPDATE:
It seems that while the square brackets work more consistently for formatting (bold, italic, blockquote, and strikethrough...), the angle brackets work best for LINKS (anchors) when posting a URL.

(Note that the software does automatically format URLs for you. So if your link is short, you can just enter in the address in your comment, e.g. http://www.kendallharmon.net/t19/ . I simply pasted in the address there without any code. The software did the formatting.)

However for long links, we prefer if you would add the anchor link coding. Here's what that looks like:
<a href="http://www....">name of the link</a>
Note: the quotation marks around the URL address are essential. Without them the code does not work.

Feel free to use this comment thread for tests. And do keep us posted as to any further examples of problems with HTML in the comments.

==========

UPDATE #2:

This elf thinks she might go insane. Angle brackets seem to work "ok" for short links. But if you've got a longer more complex links with spaces or "arguments" (i.e. like a search result for a Bible passage or something), they don't work.

One of our fabulous commenters, Patti, discovered the SOLUTION, which she explains below in the comments. Use what's known as "Bulletin Board" code.

here's how Bulletin Board code works for links. It's actually easier than HTML.

[url= the link ] the name [/url]

thus for T19 it looks like this:
[url=http://www.kendallharmon.net/t19/]Titusonenine[/url]

We'll update the comment format help section when we get a chance to reflect this new information.

Filed under: * Admin

We usually try to post this weekly feature on Monday's but didn't have any time available to do so yesterday. Here are the most-commented-upon blog entries for the week June 18-24. Comment totals as of 06:30 EDT Tuesday, June 26.

Neal Michell: What the Kenyan Initiative Means (92)
Follow-up to Seattle story (Muslim ECUSA priest) -- Updated (87)
More from Cherie Wetzel on Executive Council (77)
Wall Street Journal: Christopher Hitchens Book Debunking The Deity Is A Surprise Hit (51)
Second Lawsuit Filed Against St. John's Anglican Church by Diocese of San Diego (48)
From IRD: The Episcopal Church's Second Strike (47)
Breaking: Extremely Narrow DEFEAT for local option of SSBs at Canadian General Synod (46)
Britain's Brown Vows to Learn From Iraq (46)
The Case For and Against the of Blessing Homosexual Unions in the Anglican Church of Canada (45)
7 in 10 Americans Say Economy Is 'Getting Worse' (44)

And for those keeping track, if we based this list on total number of comments received in a week, instead of limiting it to entries posted in a given week, the Seattle Times story on the Rev. Ann Redding would have made the list for a second week, as it received approximately 64 comments after we listed it as our top ten "winner" last week. It is now the new T19 overall leader with a total of 138 comments.

Filed under: * Admin • * General Interest • Top Ten on T19