Blog Note

Yes, comments are fubared again, for reasons out of our control, as we have not changed any settings or messed with the formatting in any way.

I have notified Disqus, who will hopefully resolve the problem soon.

My apologies for the inconvenience.

UPDATE: All right, I figured it out. Something in our back-end settings keeps getting reset to a selection we don't make. I don't know why this happens over and over, but I've asked Disqus to look into it, so hopefully it can be prevented. I know it's a huge pain when the text goes tiny, but at least now I know what to do when it happens.

Please forgive me for addressing this on the blog and not responding to every email individually.

Comments Not Appearing in New Zealand & Australia

A bunch of readers have contacted me about comments threads not appearing in New Zealand and Australia, due to Blogger now redirecting blogspot.com to blogspot.co.nz and blogspot.co.au.

This causes a compatibility failure with Disqus, our third-party commenting system. For comments to load correctly, one must be viewing the blog at blogspot.com, and Bekitty's fix doesn't appear to be working anymore.

I'm so desperately sorry for the inconvenience, but it is, unfortunately, nothing over which I have any control, short of relocating Shakesville to its own server, which didn't work out so well last time I tried it.

You can contact Blogger to politely ask them to fix the problem by tweeting at them @blogger.

UPDATE: Shaker Flunkette in Australia writes: "What has been working for me (and is still working now) is to take the '.au' off the end of the url when it redirects me, and putting '/ncr' there instead, and pressing enter. If I right-click on post titles from that page and select 'open link in new tab', the page in the new tab allows me to view and post comments."

Blog Note

Posting will be very light from me today and tomorrow, as I've got a friend visiting from out of town.

Please remember that when I'm not around, we're down one moderator, so take extra care in commenting, and be patient with and respectful of the other mods who will be picking up my slack.

Blog Note

Comments are working again. My apologies who those whose comments were lost during the last hour.

ETA. And the Tree of Life is back. Woo.

Blog Note

Commenting is FUBARed at the moment. I'm trying to restore it, but Disqus isn't cooperating at the moment. I'll let you know as soon as it's fixed. My apologies.

UPDATE 1: And now my Tree of Life template got fucked trying to get rid of the commenting glitch, so we're back to pie. Comments still broken. Disqus support still not responding.

UPDATE 2: Well, I'm pretty well stuck until Disqus decides to respond to requests for help, so, in the meantime, I'm just going to keep posting, but please be advised that any comments left at the moment might be lost later. I will let you know when normal commenting is restored.

UPDATE 3: I think comments are in working order again. Apologies for the inconvenience, and my thanks to Ryan at Disqus who explained how to resolve it.

Blog Note

Please note that today is Martin Luther King, Jr. Day in the United States, which is a federal holiday, so posting will be lighter than usual. We'll be back to our regular schedule tomorrow.

Fix for Comments Not Appearing in New Zealand

A couple of readers in New Zealand have contacted me about comments suddenly not appearing for them. This appears to be due to Blogger changing its extension from .com to .co.nz, which then causes a compatibility failure with Disqus.

That's something over which I've got no control, unfortunately, but Shaker bekitty has noticed that if you put a / after blogspot.com, it doesn't redirect to the blogger.co.nz domain and then comments load normally.

Thanks, bekitty!

If anyone wants to contact Blogger to let them know about the problem, you can tweet at them @blogger.

Blog Note

It's not just the look of the blog that's new for the New Year: We've also got an updated Commenting Policy, so please make sure to check it out! Otherwise, the Shakesville Commenticorn will get a case of the sads.

Slàinte mhor a h-uile là a chi 's nach fhaic!

Thank you for another great year, Shakers.
Many of the contributors and mods are already on their journeys and/or are going to be traveling next week, so we're all taking the week off. We'll be back Tuesday, January 3, at which time we will resume your regularly scheduled abundance of incisive feminist commentary, political snark, pop culture deconstruction, cute things, and farts.

See you sooooooooooooooooon!

Important End-of-Year Fundraiser

This is, for those who have requested it, your bi-monthly reminder* to donate to Shakesville and/or to make sure to renew subscriptions that have lapsed.

It is also an important fundraiser to keep Shakesville going.

I'm going to be really honest, here: Donations are way down. Part of the reality of running this space on donations rather than corporate advertising is that my ability to keep it going depends on your support.

You can donate once by clicking the "Make a Donation" button in the righthand sidebar, or set up a monthly subscription using the "Subscribe" button just below it, which has a dropdown menu of subscription options—or visit the Subscribe to Shakesville page, for even more options. 2012 Calendars are available for purchase here.

If you value the content and/or community in this space, can afford it, and want to see Shakesville continue to be managed** as a safe space, please consider setting up a subscription or making a one-time contribution.

If you have recently appreciated getting distilled news about the economy; being able to discuss pranks in a space interested in dismantling the rape culture; finding out where to direct your teaspoon in support of social justice or in opposition to inequality; getting election news about candidates who are discussed on the basis on their policies alone, I hope you will, if you are able, contribute to support this space and make sure it continues to flourish.

I hope you will also consider the value of whatever else you appreciate at Shakesville, whether it's the moderation, Film Corner, the community in Open Threads, video transcripts, the blogarounds, Butch Pornstache, the Daily Dose of Cute, your blogmistress' penchant for inventing new words, or anything else you enjoy.

Let me reiterate, once again, that I don't want anyone to feel obliged to contribute financially, especially if money is tight. Aside from valuing feminist work, the other goal of fundraising is so Iain and I don't have to struggle on behalf of the blog, and I don't want anyone else to struggle themselves in exchange. There is a big enough readership that neither should have to happen.

I also want say thank you, so very much, to each of you who donates or has donated, whether monthly or as a one-off. I am profoundly grateful—and I don't take a single cent for granted. I've not the words to express the depth of my appreciation, besides these: This community couldn't exist without that support, truly. Thank you.

My thanks as well to everyone who contributes to the space in other ways, whether as a regular contributor, a moderator, a guest contributor, a transcriber, and/or as someone who takes the time to send me the occasional note of support and encouragement. This community couldn't exist without you, either.

---------------------

* I know there are people who resent these reminders, but there are also people who appreciate them, so I've now taken to doing them every other month, in the hopes that will make a good compromise.

** Managing Shakesville as a safe space requires, in addition to the time of our volunteer mods, my full-time commitment, and my salary is drawn exclusively from donations. I do not raise funds by corporate or content-generated advertising, as past attempts have resulted in ads served that violated the safe space, and I do not raise funds by required subscription, i.e. locking content behind a pay wall, as I want Shakesville to be accessible as possible irrespective of one's financial situation.

I cannot afford to do this full-time for free, but, even if I could, fundraising is also one of the most feminist acts I do here. I ask to be paid for my work because progressive feminist advocacy has value.

[Please Note: I am not seeking suggestions on how to raise revenue; I am asking for donations in exchange for the work of providing valued content in as safe and accessible a space as possible.]