WordPress Help

WordPress Help for Talkshop users

This is written for people who comment on the Talkshop.

• My comment has a label saying “awaiting moderation“
  What is says, a human has to allow the comment. This is a moderated blog where there are various reasons why you might be waiting in the queue. There are automatic anti-spam systems and so on.
• Can I edit my own comment?
  No. This would be a security problem because you cannot be definitely identified by the system. A stranger might be able to alter your comment.
  If you think you have made a terrible mistake you can try posting another comment asking a moderator to alter or remove your earlier comment. We cannot promise to notice and act on all requests.
• Can I use Smilies?
   Yes :), the allowed kinds and the text sequence to use are documented here but please use them with care, too many too often looks a mess. But also realise people do not know what you are thinking, your mood, so sometimes perhaps 😉 is helpful.
  http://en.support.wordpress.com/smilies/
• Can I use bold or italic text or type < >?
  With care, yes, but if you make a mistake a moderator has to go and open an editor and by hand find and correct the mistake.  It’s our life, our time, go figure.  An explanation and instructions are on this separate help page.
• I cannot read the blog easily because the text is too small.
  This is beyond our control and is set by CSS provided by WordPress. (see additional information about the blog at the end of this page)
  At least one of the bloggers is disabled and understands things can be made difficult. There is nothing exceptionally difficult about this blog and most web browsers have built in assistance, try using it.
  Blind readers, we apologise but can offer no special help, sorry. (perhaps try a Jabber feed)
  Keyboard help for various browsers, magnify is usually <control> +
  Google Chrome
  Internet Explorer, IE6, Later, all Accessibility
  Firefox (Mozilla family)
  Opera (Windows), Opera (BSD/Linux)
• Blog email / RSS notifications do not work
  There are known problems with the WordPress email notification system, which is beyond our control.
  RSS should be working.
  An experimental alternative for registered users which for the time being is free, is a Jabber feed, a messaging system. This seems to work very well but is relatively technical to install and configure.  You will need a WordPress login (is free) such as register for your own blog, which you do not have to use, millions do not. Do they track you? Within their system, yes. Is it safe? All I can say is the company seem well behaved.
  Start here if you need to register  http://wordpress.com/
  Jabber instructions are here http://en.support.wordpress.com/jabber/
• Why no advertisements?
  Because someone Donated to pay WordPress and everyone seems to prefer it this way.
  Occassional small donations help pay.
• Can is use Latex (maths symbols) in a comment?
  Yes but it is considered difficult to do. Some users do this successfully.
  http://en.support.wordpress.com/latex/
• What is the blog width?
  The blog text and image width is 550 pixels but this must be subject to change, is outside our control except via the WordPress Theme used.
• Can I post images?
  We prefer you to post a link to an image which we can turn into an embedded image in the comments section.
  There are various practical reasons, such as fitting the image size to the blog, and security, images we do not control are dangerous. Also remember an image here might bring very high network traffic and overload a server (such as yours), slow web page loads, use up your quota on a server. You can ask us to move an image to WordPress servers but please accept it is our decision and our time. We also have to try and make a decision on copyright.
• How can I contact the Talkshop?
  There is no direct method. There is an experimental contact form which might become permanent
  A contact form is here.
• You could leave a brief comment on the Suggestions page; remember the moderators and administrators can see your email address. There is no promise to contact you, but we do try to find time to respond.
• Can I change the name I use to post comments?
  You obviously can but expect this to be noticed by administration and might cause minor trouble. Changing identity is what people using “Socket Puppets” do, annoying individuals usually causing trouble and who try to avoid being stopped by changing their identity.
  You could try putting a brief note in your comment.

Legal matters

The web site is considered to exist in England, UK and therefore English law and EU law is applicable. Particularly note that English libel law is operative, considered the most difficult in the world.  (libel is defamation in writing)

We are private individuals, not public figures.

We try to keep within copyright law, within fair usage, non-commercial usage. Please let us know if you think there is a violation.

Background information for the curious

Tallbloke’s Talkshop is hosted on servers managed full time by WordPress as a cloud of servers in the USA. This also means server resources and network bandwidth is shared by everyone, making it difficult to overload the server if a single site has very high traffic.

WordPress blog software comes in two forms

1. Ready to use hosted and managed by WordPress, Tallbloke’s Talkshop uses this.
2. As a software package for running on your own server. You can do more things but all management is your responsibility, including security.

Things to do with (1) are found on the site wordpress.com and to do with (2) on wordpress.org

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Comments might be enabled on this page but all comments are subject to immediate deletion or removal.
The intention is Help suggestions and discussion.