… in with the New

By: Steve Evans - November 24, 2004

Welcome to our new home!

rameumptom www.bycommonconsent.com was the big winner of our last poll, and so we bow before the voice of the people, and provide you with a new URL, a snazzy new interface, and a whole new BCC.  Explore a little –  we’ve added some features you may find interesting, such as:

  • a real, honest-to-goodness Recent Comments sidebar;
  • categories for posts, so that those solely interested in SSM can focus their perversions effectively;
  • excerpted first paragraphs, so that now we can be even more long-winded;
  • did I mention Recent Comments?

All of our old posts are still available at the old site, along with the comments, so you can reminisce about the good old days, before John Fowles became a moderate.  We’re still tweaking the interface a little here at bycommonconsent.com, so let us know if there are other features you’d like to see.

But wait….. there’s more!  We have expanded our number, filling out our unholy quorum at twelve with two old, but new members of the bloggernacle: Bob Caswell and Logan Bobo.  That’s right, Bob and Logan have agreed to lend their mighty arm to BCC’s noble cause, whatever that is.  We welcome them as brethren.  Which one is Uchtdorf?  Which one is Bednar?  Only they know, but Logan does have a weird, european accent.  Even if one of them turns out to be a foreigner, we think it’s AWESOME to have them aboard.

"Hold on, Steve,"  you say.  "Didn’t you promise us a MASSIVE change?  How is this different from the weak stunt T&S pulled last week?  I mean, that’s big, but MASSIVE?"  Well, Timmy, never say I break my promises.  The fusion of Bob and Logan’s wizardry with BCC’s mad skillz created an unforseen side effect, with amazing results: the creation of a whole new blog!  The spirit of the Bloggernacle infused us with wonderful secret powers, and resulted in Kulturblog : the most powerful blog in the universe!  At Kulturblog you’ll find reviews and commentary on film, pop culture, TV, music, literature and more.  It’s not a strict member of the Bloggernacle, so you won’t find a lot of King Follett discussions there, but Kulturblog will give you your daily dose (and more) of the arts in a new way.  I think it’s one of the most exciting projects I’ve seen, and I hope you agree.

So there you have it: a new look, a new URL, new bloggers, and a whole new blog to boot.  It’s a lot to digest, but it’s all fun.  We hope you enjoy it.

35 Comments

  1. All I can say is that I surely hope I’m not Bednar; I’d rather be Uchtdorf even if I have to fake an accent.

    By the way, when will the design changes include a self-absorbed-large-font list of our names on the main page? Or are we purposely not doing that?

    Comment by Bob Caswell — November 24, 2004 @ 2:07 am

  2. Open House

    Welcome visitors from the New Bcc (and anyone else who wanders in).

    Trackback by Dave's Mormon Inquiry — November 24, 2004 @ 2:44 am

  3. Welcome aboard, Bob (and you too, Logan). You may already have found it, but there is a list of Bcc posters at About Bcc, top of the left sidebar.

    Comment by Dave — November 24, 2004 @ 3:01 am

  4. Good to have you on board, Bob and Logan. Now that there’s a meaningful libertarian wing here within the BCC Quorum, perhaps we can put these Big Government, welfare-statist, bleeding-heart, pinko-commie lefties in their place. Excommunicate the bastards, I say. Viva la counter-revolucion!

    Aaron B

    Comment by Aaron Brown — November 24, 2004 @ 4:01 am

  5. Hey Bob, what are you saying? I’m not being Bednar. He might be our new Ammon.

    Yeah, Aaron, we’ll totally put ‘em in their place. As libertarians, pointlessly sticking our fingers in the eye of the establishment and foolishly holding on to completely impractical rebelliousness until the others get tired are our specialties!

    Comment by Logan — November 24, 2004 @ 8:55 am

  6. I’m glad to see you raising the bar around here, instead of just hanging out in one.

    Comment by CB — November 24, 2004 @ 9:07 am

  7. Looks great! Good to know I still get to be the butt of your jokes!

    Comment by john fowles — November 24, 2004 @ 9:40 am

  8. Sorry John, I couldn’t resist… but you have to admit it was pretty funny!

    Comment by Steve Evans — November 24, 2004 @ 9:43 am

  9. Wow! The look is very nice. Now if only it had nested comments. Yes, I am a whiner.

    Comment by a random John — November 24, 2004 @ 10:17 am

  10. nested comments, eh? I’m listening…

    Comment by Steve Evans — November 24, 2004 @ 10:19 am

  11. One more complaint! I will soon forget how to spell rameumpt… crap.

    Comment by a random John — November 24, 2004 @ 10:20 am

  12. Yes, it was funny. Keep up the good work.

    Comment by john fowles — November 24, 2004 @ 10:40 am

  13. Well I don’t know about the rest of these folks, but I for one only came here because Steve promised to provide free pr0n. Don’t disappoint me, guys and gals. You wouldn’t want to lose a reader . . .

    Comment by Kaimi — November 24, 2004 @ 11:01 am

  14. It looks as though once again BCC has outdone itself with an original and innovative new move that avoids trailing along in the wake of what has already been done at other blogs.

    Oh wait. Never mind…

    Comment by Nate Oman — November 24, 2004 @ 11:13 am

  15. Nate, use your powers for good rather than evil. I know nothing of what has been done in other blogs — my mind is not yet been opened.

    Comment by Steve Evans — November 24, 2004 @ 11:15 am

  16. Looks great. It’s about time. Haloscan actually kept me from visiting and commenting here — yuck.

    Comment by Bryce I — November 24, 2004 @ 11:18 am

  17. Hey!

    I was right. Where’s my Hornsman?

    Comment by Kim Siever — November 24, 2004 @ 11:41 am

  18. Kim, you were only part right. I’ll send you the tennis visor for the Hornsman someday.

    Comment by Steve Evans — November 24, 2004 @ 11:43 am

  19. No way. I want the horn. Or, does the visor come off the statue?

    Comment by Kim Siever — November 24, 2004 @ 11:49 am

  20. Let me be the first to type the sacred word on this blog:

    Chupacabra!

    Comment by danithew — November 24, 2004 @ 1:11 pm

  21. Oh, and put me down also on the votes for nested comments. Get them installed now while this blog is fairly new.

    Comment by danithew — November 24, 2004 @ 1:13 pm

  22. What are nested comments?

    Comment by David Fletcher — November 24, 2004 @ 1:21 pm

  23. I don’t know what nested comments are, but they sound snuggly.

    Comment by Steve Evans — November 24, 2004 @ 1:22 pm

  24. They are also referred to sometimes as “threaded comments”. I have them on my blog … but they’d be put to better use on yours since you have much higher traffic.

    Comment by danithew — November 24, 2004 @ 1:25 pm

  25. Yeah, I see what you mean, but A) I’m not convinced of their use and B) I don’t know CSS well enough to do it. Perhaps I shall give admin to Danithew and let him tinker…

    Comment by Steve Evans — November 24, 2004 @ 1:27 pm

  26. Steve,

    I’ve created a junk post at my blog … feel free to test out the threaded comments feature to your hearts delight.

    Comment by danithew — November 24, 2004 @ 1:28 pm

  27. I don’t think there’s a real advantage to those nested comments. It’s just… more cluttered.

    I’ve said it before — I like the old “board” style comments best, like my board, which you are all welcome to browse. Each thread pops to the top when it has a new comment.

    http://p069.ezboard.com/fsondheimandusfrm2

    Comment by David Fletcher — November 24, 2004 @ 1:34 pm

  28. For mine I simply added a plugin that Brian Meidell created. Here’s the addy:

    http://meidell.dk/archives/2004/09/04/nested-comments/

    With WordPress it only takes about two minutes to install them. I’m not sure if TypePad has anything similarly or if this could be easily adapated for TypePad.

    D. Fletcher … don’t you know you’re supposed to agree with me on stuff? Geez. :)

    Comment by danithew — November 24, 2004 @ 1:40 pm

  29. I do, Dan, I do! And we look alike… say, maybe we’re the same person?

    Comment by D. Fletcher — November 24, 2004 @ 1:42 pm

  30. D. Fletcher,

    Shhhh. That’s a big secret.

    BTW Steve…

    I’m no CSS expert either. Wordpress is easy. For some reason people think because I have a Wordpress blog, that I have skillz. It’s an illusion I tell you. I don’t create unique code. I only tweak and move around code that others have created. It’s surprisingly easy. Plus, between WordPress support and some of the ‘Nacle coders, there’s plenty of help for when you come up with a coding question you don’t know how to answer.

    Comment by danithew — November 24, 2004 @ 1:50 pm

  31. FWIW, I think nested comments create fragmented discussions. Nesting also permits two opposing commenters to create their own little one-on-one argument mini-thread. So I’m inclined to leave nested comments and apologetic online foodfights to discussion boards, and use weblogs for group conversations (whether lighthearted or serious).

    Comment by Dave — November 24, 2004 @ 1:53 pm

  32. Dave, are you saying that there’s no room on BCC for apologetic foodfights? Why on earth did we found this dumb thing, if not to encourage a cage-match brawl between FARMS and well, anybody who doesn’t like FARMS?

    Comment by Steve Evans — November 24, 2004 @ 1:55 pm

  33. I hate nested comments.

    Comment by Kim Siever — November 24, 2004 @ 2:23 pm

  34. I agree with Kim.

    Congrats on the unveiling, guys. Looks nice.

    Comment by Ryan Bell — November 24, 2004 @ 2:34 pm

  35. The **cool** way to do it is to allow the user to set a cookie that determines how the comments display. That way, everybody wins.

    Of course, that’s also the **hard** way.

    Comment by Bryce I — November 24, 2004 @ 3:05 pm