Hey everyone! We’ve got a few changes coming. These are good and exciting changes and there should be no major disruptions, but we wanted to let everyone know so they could be prepared if the site briefly looks weird. Additionally, there will be a few hours where no one can make a new commenting account, so if you’re anxious to tell David he’s a moron for ever defaming the AMC 360 V8, you should register now. Details below.
What are we doing?
All the info you need is coming tomorrow, but the short version is that we’re going to be giving our dear readers/commenters/haters more ways to get involved in the community as members, and we’re going to set the groundwork for a new and better commenting system. We’ll be transferring everyone’s account to a system (called Memberful) that will handle memberships as well as commenter accounts. Don’t worry, all of your brilliant comments (and all of your less brilliant ones) will be retained and transferred over and, hopefully, it should all be pretty seamless. The website will remain wide open for everyone to read; this is a car site for the people, after all.
We’ll continue to use our current commenting system for a while as we test Memberful and make sure the sign-up transition works, but we hope to have the much better system up-and-running soon.
What do I need to do?
Right now? Nothing. If you’re a reader and not a commenter? Nothing. If you’re a commenter? Ideally, in a few hours, you’ll be asked to login and then you’ll be sent a new link to make all the server magic happen. The new system should keep you logged in for a while, and you won’t need to deal with passwords anymore.
When you come to the site you should be prompted to sign-in to comment and you’ll get this page:
All you need to do is add your email, then you’ll get a link in your email like this:
When you click that link it’ll (hopefully) recognize that you’ve got an account and this is how we’ll tie the two together:
That should be the last time you ever have to login using the old system. From this point forward, in theory, you’ll only need a link sent to your email. If you don’t have a commenter account but decide you want one it’ll be the above, just without the last step.
If you notice anything not working please email us and let us know. After that, if you can afford to, we hope you’ll sign up as a member to support the site! If every commenter became a paying member we’d have enough scratch to hire two new writers immediately.
So in short:
- Right now, you don’t need to do anything.
- If you’re a commenter, at some point in the next day you’ll probably have to login twice (once in the current system and once in the new system)
- The site will look slightly different and better and you can become an official member if you want!
- That’s it. Enjoy reading and commenting on The Autopian!
Should I be afraid?
Of this? No. Of the world? Also no! Everything is going to turn out just fine.
Is that a picture of a Riley Elf?
Yes!
Can We Go To Jason’s Basement To See How The Transition Is Going…
Will this ultimately be incredible and, potentially, life-changing?
Absolutely.
Photo credit: Wheelsage
…c-can you link my Bad Comment Section Troll comments to my articles in the switchover?
I’m happy with the current simple login and don’t need more email or two-step information stealing “security” hosted by someone. What I would like is for the login to kick me back where I was and reload the page in logged-in mode. A pretty simple fix I would think.
Why do I feel an Autopian OnlyFans account is in the works?
Tell Torch I have a spare Apple ][+ with the big 64KB of RAM option for the next upgrade. It’s even got the fancy 80 column graphics card!
Will this get the notoriously awful WordPress spam filter to stop eating my comments? 😛
No major disruptions, huh? I got a 403 trying to comment on an article, and you don’t think that is major? (Really just testing on another article.)
Huh. Just the self-driving article, then.
But what about the print magazine??? It should come with my issue of Dub and CD subscription.
Hey, Torch, just take off that plastic protective sleeve. Then the floppy disk inside can be folded up into the drive, no problem! This is what some of our employees did at one of my jobs many years ago even though the disk was already the right size…
I am concerned that the site may be briefly weird. This is a notable downgrade from usually weird, and I do not approve.
Any reduction in weirdness is simply unacceptable, I’ll do my best to make it Xtra Weird!
I don’t know why, but as I was reading this announcement, I had a disturbing vision of David, Jason, Matt, Mercedes and Beau dancing on a hilltop to The Sound of Griswolds….or Van Trapps if that is your thing.
On an only slightly related note, are we going to get a story on the Rivian bedbugs? Or is this one of those, well, if everyone subscribed then we could afford to hire another writer to write that story?
Yes…?
bugs, no those are undocumented features
Seriously?!? It took hiring Patrick George to finally get a revised commenting system? Does he know he is going to get all the blame if it sucks?
To be fair, I routinely blame things on Patrick George on principle, even when it’s not his fault.
I am confused as to why I have to give my credit card info out and add David Tracy to my Rockauto account
The last thing really did make me laugh out loud!
I had a Digital PDP that used tape drives so……
Looking forward to the new upgrades!
While I plan to become a supporting member, I hope commenting remains free. The Church of David Tracy congregation is not a wealthy one.
That’s the plan!
“Is that a picture of a Riley Elf? Yes.”
True. With that dash it’s clearly not a Wolseley Hornet.
Over/under on getting an edit button?
Over/under on that button being a member perk?
Fuck, I’d pay tree fiddy for that.
I would pay money to get rid of the “older comments” crap and the random “your comment is awaiting moderation”. Can paying customers be assumed not to be spam-bots and get their comments posted automatically?
If we become supporting members (feels like NPR), will we get faster Project Cactus updates?
They’ll upgrade the Project Cactus updates from carrier pigeon to old timey morse code via telegraph. Way faster that way.
Answering all these questions:
1. To be safe, the commenter upgrades are coming second (this is step one) but we hope to have those very soon and they should fix most of the problems.
2. BIG (huge, yuuuuuuuge) Project Cactus update is coming before the end of this week or David is fired.
3. We are not planning to charge people extra for basic commenting functionality.
Everybody on Sand Hill Road is extremely disappointed in you for #3 Matt, and assures you that your venture will be a complete and total failure.
Ha, love the jab on DT and his shitboxes with the sign in e-mail dialogue.
What happens if you can’t remember your password?
Chrome remembers it for me LOL
I can’t go and change it, because it wants my current one LOL
Dang, hate to start over and really try to find a clever name
never mind, google showed me how LOL
Care to elaborate in case someone else has this question?
I just had an Outlook server forget my user/pw for another company I work for. They all suck a little bit. I also keep a piece of paper under my keyboard with my passwords. eff the cloud.
If it’s Chrome:
Chrome menu (3 dots, upper right) > Settings > Autofill (left side) > Password Manager
Use the search bar “autopian”
Then click the little (eye) to show the password. It will ask you for your computer password, and then it will show the autofill password
Firefox will play the same game in the “Settings” section and of course with most browsers you can “Sync” all this across to your other devices, so if one kicks the bucket you have your stuff to sync back. Of course all this doesn’t help much if you fried your brain with solvent exposure.
“What happens if you can’t remember your password?”
You’ll just have to start sniffing glue or start taking amphetamines…
Or both?
Looks like I picked the wrong week to quit amphetamines.
Looks like I picked the wrong week to quit sniffing glue, or to make this more Autopian appropriate, auto upholstery contact cement.
Headliner adhesives are my choice for huffing 😉
Is that the same as just spray adhesive?
Probably. I’ve seen it both brush on and in spray cans.
That depends on how long you want your headliner to stay in place and/or how much of a tolerance you’ve developed to huffing the fumes.
And it looks like I picked the wrong week to quit sniffing glue.
Surely you must be joking
I’m serious, and don’t call me Shirley!
I’m not joking and don’t call me Shirley!
Looking forward to more people having a chance to read all my bad previous comments, where would we be without the classic typos
I will be on the look out as I, for one, welcome our Autopian Overlords.
you laugh, but my dad had 4 of those PC Juniors with 4 sidecars each.
it was actually better than the contemporary PCs for graphics (and he did graphic design work)
MMM,, tooobs
That’s true! The composite output had 16 colors instead of the usual CGA garbage 4 colors. Plus a real 3-voice sound chip! Of course, every fucking connector is proprietary fragile bullshit and it’s terrible in many other ways.
Torch, you could have just said “yes, but the only high points were 16 colors and a 3 voice sound chip on the days either one of these deigned to work.”
Of course, then I would have had to say something like “wait, you got one to actually work?”
agreed.
As someone who mentally frames all change as bad, I am pessimistic about this new system.
Just kidding, I’m glad to see the site growing and adding features. And I’m glad you’re keeping all the less brilliant comments, too. I’d hate to start from scratch.
neatbender.gif