Comments on: Getting Off the Consumer Grid

By: toujoursjacques

toujoursjacques — Thu, 01 May 2008 14:45:43 +0000

Well…yes, many years ago it did cross my mind. It is probably a good thing for the library world that I didn’t pursue it however. I do love the library though…perhaps next to the garden, my favorite place to be on earth.

By: Stefanie

Stefanie — Thu, 01 May 2008 13:06:06 +0000

TJ, have you ever thought of being a librarian? You would make a fantastic cataloger/indexer with you organizational skills

By: ecojustice08

ecojustice08 — Wed, 30 Apr 2008 21:51:42 +0000

Ahh, thanks for clearing that up. And don’t worry, nobody is more challenged than I when it comes to these things.

By: toujoursjacques

toujoursjacques — Wed, 30 Apr 2008 20:50:05 +0000

Hi Emily—
The only categories that show up in the widget are the ones that have posts in them. So when someone posts for the first time and they check the category box with their name before posting, they will then show up in the widget. If people forget to check their category, it their post will show up as uncategorized and we can move it later as long as we know who posted. Only original posts show in the categories list; comments don’t. So Ian, Andi, etc. who have commented but not posted, do not show up in the category lists yet.

By the way, when participants are ready to post their message and check the category box by their name they may not see it. The list only shows the four or five most recently used categories. But just to the left is a link that says “show all categories” whicc, when clicked on, will do so.

Hope this helps. I feel odd being the one to help others; I’m usually so challenged in these things!

Best, TJ

By: ecojustice08

ecojustice08 — Wed, 30 Apr 2008 20:07:44 +0000

All right, so I added the widget and added the names to categories, but for some reason, most of them aren’t showing up in the widget. Why is that? Some WordPress aficionado, please help me.

By: toujoursjacques

toujoursjacques — Wed, 30 Apr 2008 17:04:37 +0000

Hello—
Categories would be best. Tags are very general. Tags are like searching for keyword instead of title or author. A search will look everywhere in the post I think—but maybe I’m wrong. In any case Categories can be archived and show up on the Category widget and tags don’t. You have fewer Categories than tags that hold specific stuff. If we included the widget for Categories in the side bar, we could have Cam, Stefanie, TJ, Emily, Andi, etc. as well as light’s out, books, eating local and the other categories of the challenge. It’s a way of grouping and archiving rather than tagging by interest and we may or may not use the same words to describe our interests. We’d each have to be sure to check the appropriate category before posting, which we do on our own blogs anyway, right?

Emily. It’s probably best if you do this since any new participants come through you. But if you don’t have time to add the widget and categories, I would be willing.

In the meantime, we could each add our own category box with our username before posting.

I think it’s worth figuring out. We still have over 11 months of the challenge left! Any other ideas?
TJ

By: Cam

Cam — Wed, 30 Apr 2008 16:41:29 +0000

I agree with TJ’s plan. I looked at all the options/settings this morning and could not find a way to get the author’s name to appear, so it appears to be absent from the template as Stefanie suggests. What is the difference between a category & a tag?

By: toujoursjacques

toujoursjacques — Wed, 30 Apr 2008 13:09:41 +0000

Thank you so much everyone for your detective work! And thank you Stefanie for also posting on The Compact. I think it’s everywhere right now…and hope it will have a lasting impact.

I have a suggestion. We could each have our own category (our user name) and add it to the category list before we post, i.e.: TJ, mountaintop removal, coal.
And if someone forgets, we could add their username for them from the manage posts page? I think this is better than signing because it would also archive posts by user so we could search them that way if we wanted to. Just a thought.

By: Stefanie

Stefanie — Wed, 30 Apr 2008 12:42:33 +0000

Thanks Cam. It was me who posted this. I think the template for the theme is lacking posting names, but I’m not sure. There also might be a setting somewhere that will make our names show up.

TJ, that’s funny that you posted about the compact on your blog. I had never heard of them until a coworker mentioned them yesterday.

By: Cam

Cam — Wed, 30 Apr 2008 11:09:42 +0000

Emily & TJ, you can see who added this post by going to the Manage Post option. I would think there would be a way to display who posted, but I’m a novice with WordPress too. Will let you know if/when I figure this out.

The post, btw, was written by Stefanie (So Many Books).