Shrift, would that explain why my blog won't update?

Possibly. Change the FTP server to the domain name (www.shriftweb.org), not the IP address, and see if that works.

If it doesn't, well, I can't change FTP passwords until they get me my frelling web interface access back.

Thanks for bringing us back ita. You rock. Now let's ownloadday the atabaseday and amscray ASAP.

In completely unrelated news, since Phoenix went down my work productivity went up over 300%. Weird coincidence, isn't it?

PURELY coincidental, I am sure.

It was easy work, cake walk stuff.

ita, blessings on you and on your krav, blessings on your house and your knives, blessings on your work time and your posting time.

t faux irish blessing, edited for applicability

Thanks ita, for getting us back up and running. I, and I'm sure other people too, am very very happy to be back "home."

throws flowers (no, not quite right) throws kisses (not that either) throws knives (well, that was a little suicidal) throws self at ita's feet.

What amych said.

Okay, I've been reading the discussions in this thread about MARCIE. From what I've seen, the general (fake?) consensus about the spec has been:

• On the header of each post, along with the "Mark" (and the "Edit", "Delete") links, a new "Hide"/"Unhide" link. Clicking on it would block/unblock all the posts of that poster.

• Posts blacklisted would show "text of post rendered blinvisible by Marcie." in small font, possibly with a link to the FAQ explaining what it is.

• Interface in the user's profile page to unblock posters.

• The block would work according to the users's ID, not the name.

From what I've seen, everybody pretty much agrees with the above. As for other options, we have:

• Hiding a post also suppresses the user's tagline (suggested by Noumenon).

• Each user can block up to 15 other posters (suggested by Noumenon, due to perfomance reasons).

• Potentially, the posibility of reading just one particular post of a blocked user by clicking on a link. This would *not* unblock the user, would not add it to a hypothetical list of unblocked posts in the DB, etc.; it would just reload the page with that post unblocked, and that would be it.

Are there any objections?

Posts blacklisted would show "text of post rendered blinvisible by Marcie." in small font, possibly with a link to the FAQ explaining what it is.

You know, I'm thinking if you've blocked a poster, you already know what it is. We probably don't need the link there. And as mentioned upthread, it's eyecatching.

On the header of each post, along with the "Mark" (and the "Edit", "Delete") links, a new "Hide"/"Unhide" link. Clicking on it would block/unblock all the posts of that poster.

My brain runs along the line of blocking a poster and hiding a post ... does that make sense? So Hide implies to me that it's just the post that's going to go. Maybe you would like to hide the poster, but I don't think it's legal.

(Cereal:)

Just read what ita mentioned about CVS in Bureaucracy. The problem is, I have no idea about CVS at all, nor I have a machine where I could host a server (access to lots of them at work, but would rather not use them for personal stuff). I just stepped up because I have now a few free days and I thought that MARCIE looked simple enough for me to implement it during this break, but if I were to do it, it would have to be in the old-fashioned way: developers send me the code, I send back diffs (or modified files), they are checked and merged, etc. (obviously, that would be the only way if we don't have CVS). Would there be a problem with cooperating in this way just for this particular case, since there's apparently a strong need for this feature?

You know, I'm thinking if you've blocked a poster, you already know what it is. We probably don't need the link there

Yes, but as Noumenon mentioned... newbies!! Newbies in new places!! Newbies clicking on things by accident!

My brain runs along the line of blocking a poster and hiding a post ... does that make sense?

Oh, okay. Actually that's just gravy, isn't it? Doesn't take too much to change "Unhide" for "Unblock" or "UnMarcie" in the code.