Finding Fred's Finest

The technicians at Patheos.com are now in the process of doing a full reimport of all of Fred Clark's posts from the day he started the Slacktivist blog to the day he moved to the Patheos site. The original comments are visible on the newly reimported posts.

This process will take some time.

TBAT will begin removing Fred's old posts Monday August 14th and continue to remove posts from The Slacktiverse as the posts are importing to the Patheos.com archives. When the process is completed all of Fred's posts will be removed from The Slacktiverse.

TBAT will add a direct link to the Patheos Left Behind archive on the sidebar.

For technical reasons (which people on both sites have been struggling with for months) it is not possible to have redirects. TBAT is, however, willing to do the following--they will manually go into a selected number of posts and replace the text with a link to the post on Patheos.

This is time intensive so we are limiting the number of posts we edit links into to twenty.

So, leave comments on this thread to:

• nominate up to ten posts you think should be link-edited
• remind other members of the community of posts that they might want to reread/save.

TBAT will collate those nominations, and from that list let people vote for the top twenty posts.

---

 

The Board Administration Team
(hapax, Kit Whitfield and mmy)



Comments

[kisekileia]

I nominate the Sex and Money series (that's three posts) for link editing.

[Phoenix]

When the posts are moved, will the comments go with them? Or will they disappear forever? (This would affect which articles I nominated for retention.)

[Kit Whitfield]

I nominate 'The Burkha-Logic of NOM.'

[Kit Whitfield]

Actually (sort of puts TBAT-hat on): could people begin their nominations with the words 'I nominate'? It'd help go through them if there was an easy-to-search phrase...

[Mmy]

@Phoenix: When the posts are moved, will the comments go with them? Or will they disappear forever? (This would affect which articles I nominated for retention.)

The comments move with the posts. That is, in fact, what has taken so long. The first attempts to import to Patheos (unintentionally) stripped the comments from the posts.

[Ross]

Has anyone tried to do any sort of link analysis? I don't know what tools are available on the server side (I'm guessing "not many"), but I did a quick google search for inbound links. I haven't found the specific thing I was looking for yet, but I know the reason I ended up here in the first place was that one of Fred's articles got linked on boingboing. The pages I'd be inclined to nominate are the ones most widely linked to by other sites. Provided I could figure out which ones those were.

[Kit Whitfield]

Ross: if you want to make nominations based on link analyses, do the analyses and make your nominations on that basis. We're going on a community vote, because it's for the benefit of the community that we're going to the trouble of preserving twenty links.

I personally don't see much point in choosing on that basis, because it's being done for the convenience of people who've already found and currently participate in this web address, but if you want to vote that way, go ahead. We'll go with what the community votes for.

[Mmy]

@Ross: The pages I'd be inclined to nominate are the ones most widely linked to by other sites. Provided I could figure out which ones those were.

First, almost impossible to get those stats.

Second, it is a service for members of our community here. If new people arrive at The Slacktiverse I'd rather like them to look around before they move on to Patheos (and when Patheos finally gets a central LB archive organized we will link with that from the sidebar.)

Third, can you remember anything about the article? One of us might be able to figure which one it was.

[Ross]

if you want to make nominations based on link analyses, do the analyses and make your nominations on that basis. We're going on a community vote, because it's for the benefit of the community that we're going to the trouble of preserving twenty links.

This is the thing I said I wanted to do, yes.

I personally don't see much point in choosing on that basis, because it's being done for the convenience of people who've already found and currently participate in this web address, but if you want to vote that way, go ahead. We'll go with what the community votes for.

But in light of this, I won't. I didn't realize that was why TBAT was doing it, and I've got no interest in "taking away" a slot from someone who would benefit from that.

[cjmr]

Do TBAT have any idea if there is a way to have a thread NOT moved to Patheos? I would rather, if it is at all possible keep the 'welcome cjmr's seedling thread' HERE and not have it moved and linked at Patheos.

[cjmr]

In fact, I would rather it be deleted entirely if it can't be not moved.

[Kit Whitfield]

@cjmr: Sorry, but that can't be done. If you held copyright on the thread you'd have the right to refuse, but you don't - it's debatable whether any of us even have sole copyright of our own posts. Can't be helped, we're afraid.

[cjmr]

I suppose I can ask Fred if he will delete it, if I can figure out how to contact him. It was nice when it happened, but we were more of a closed community than Patheos is.

[Mmy]

@cjmr: We don't hold the copyright over the posts so we cannot choose to keep (and not move) any of the posts. If you email us (slackmods at gmail dot com) to identify the post I'll forward your request to the person at Patheos who is in charge of the actual importation of the posts/comments.

To give people a sense of where we are in the process -- everything that had ever been posted to the Slacktivist website was (in April if I remember correctly when I did it) exported in a single massive archive file. This was the only option TypePad offered. That file was then divided up into a series of smaller files (that had to be done by hand) because it was too large to be imported to anything. [Yes, TypePad will export a file that is too large for it re-import.] Those chunks were then converted into a form that could be imported into a separate Wordpress (password protected) website where they were further massaged so that the technicians at Patheos.com could take over the process and import them to the Patheos website. This process failed the first time it was attempted. The posts imported and the comments didn't. The technicians at Patheos had to do further fiddling in order to get the comments imported with the original posts.

Thus, everything that had been here has already been transferred to a website that the Patheos technicians have control over. They have kindly allowed us not to take down Fred's original posts/with comments until they were available at the new site.

I think it might be technically possible to remove all or part of a thread without removing the post. If you email us enough details for us to track down the threads in question we can pass along your (from my point of view quite understandable) request to the people who would actually have to carry it out.

[Phoenix]

Got it. Thank you, Mmy.

I nominate "Hold on to the good" from 15 October 2010, "Jackie at the crossroads" from 19 September 2010, and "The fatted calf is delicious, you should come inside and join the party" from 21 October 2010, for starters.

Are links helpful?

http://slacktivist.typepad.com/slacktivist/2010/10/hold-on-to-the-good.html

http://slacktivist.typepad.com/slacktivist/2010/09/jackie-at-the-crossroads.html

http://slacktivist.typepad.com/slacktivist/2010/10/the-fatted-calf-is-delicious-you-should-come-inside-and-join-the-party.html

I have many, many more posts bookmarked but mostly for interesting discussions. Those ones are "bookmarked for truth," if you will. I'm very glad to hear the discussions will be retained - thanks for everyone's hard work to make that happen.

[Phoenix, who can always find something to fix about her posts]

By "those ones," I meant the three I just nominated. I don't think that was very clear.

I think the three I nominated (among many others) really capture the spirit of this blog, both before and after Fred's departure.

I'm interested to see which ones the community ends up preserving. Again, thanks to TBAT and everyone else for working so hard to make this happen.

[Mmy]

@everyone: The only requests to remove threads that I can imagine getting a response from Fred/Patheos would be ones that involved children (the seedling in this case.)

Emails to the slackmods with the names/dates of the posts involved plus a reasonable explanation of the request may be forwarded but I wouldn't count on them be acted on by those who now hold the material.

[cjmr]

Thanks, mmy. Email sent.

[Mmy]

I nominate LB: The Visitation Pastor and LB: God's battered wife.

[Timothy (TRiG)]

The first Left Behind post after the move was posted at both places. I imagine it would be possible to merge the two comment threads, but it would surely be messy. Since that was after the backup and transfer you're talking about, it's probably safe to stay here anyway, but I'd like to see that confirmed.

TRiG.

[Mmy]

@Timothy (TRiG): Since Fred write that post it is not our decision whether it stays up. I am quite willing to edit a link into the post.

[Timothy (TRiG)]

Oh. One of those spammers who copies and pasts stuff from earlier in the thread to make his comment seem relevant.

Bleurgh.

TRiG.

[Amaryllis]

I nominate "Vampires & Crosses."

[tlrmx.org]

“For technical reasons (which people on both sites have been struggling with for months) it is not possible to have redirects.”

It would be more honest to admit that nobody is willing to do the work. There are a variety of solutions which trade effort needed against the effectiveness and reliability of the solution. All of them seem preferable to dead links.

For example, a low effort option is blog-wide ECMAscript to match on dates before the move, and shunt the reader's web browser to the right section of the Patheos archives. It's not seamless, but it's better than what's expected to happen now, which is an empty document leaving no sign where to find the missing material.

[Amaryllis]

Oh, the link for "Vampires" is
http://slacktivist.typepad.com/slacktivist/2009/09/vampires-crosses.html

And because I'm forgetful, also--
I nominate "The Long March of the Koalas"
http://slacktivist.typepad.com/slacktivist/2009/08/land-of-oz.html

[Tonio]

I've quoted the King and Huck entry several times elsewhere, because I see it as a near-perfect articulation of the principle behind church-state separation.

[Mmy]

@tlrmx.org: It would be more honest to admit that nobody is willing to do the work. There are a variety of solutions which trade effort needed against the effectiveness and reliability of the solution. All of them seem preferable to dead links.

It would be more honest for you to admit that you have absolutely no idea of the time, effort and technical difficulties involved in doing this. People who are aware of those things have been among the voices involved in this decision.

Fred Clark/Patheos are content with this solution.

The articles are Fred's. If Fred had asked us to take them down with no indication of where (or if) they were being relocated it would have been well within his rights.

[tlrmx.org]

It would be more honest for you to admit that you have absolutely no idea of the time, effort and technical difficulties involved in doing this.

It's untrue that I have "absolutely no idea of the time, effort and technical difficulties involved".

[Mmy]

@tlrmx.org: It's untrue that I have "absolutely no idea of the time, effort and technical difficulties involved".

Let me see -- you make suggestions that indicate you don't understand the underlying issues. The logical implication is that you may have ideas but they are not accurate ideas.

Also, please understand:

1) You have no legal/moral standing in these issues.

2) You are not the employer/manager/boss of anyone involved.

[Kit Whitfield]

@tlmrx: your first comment in this community is to accuse us of lying and laziness? What on earth is wrong with you?

I think we need to make something clear. We have been trying to sort out what the best technical solution to the problem is for months. This has involved many hours of time, spent both by mmy, our technical TBAT, who has done the work purely out of good will, for no financial reward, and in the face of much criticism and ingratitude from many community members; by volunteers at Patheos; and also by a professional that Patheos employed.

This solution is the best compromise anyone can work out.

It is, therefore, all that is on offer.

There have been discussions and investigation. Those are now over. The purpose of this post is to notify the community of the final decision that has been reached on the subject.

If people have particular requests they want passed on to Patheos, they're welcome to do so; we can't guarantee that Patheos will do anything, but we can pass them along. Beyond that, people are requested to stick to the actual subject, which is nominated a top twenty.

[Literata]

tlrmx, you do not get to show up here and tell our hardworking, kindhearted, considerate, extremely skilled and very generous TeaBats what to do. Kindly go do something more useful and appropriate with yourself, like putting your fertilizer on a garden rather than trying to use it to smear the walls of the house they and we have worked so hard to build and are trying to remodel.

[Tonio]

We have been trying to sort out what the best technical solution to the problem is for months.

Since I'm involved in web programming myself, including server-side scripting, I would be interested in reading about the technical hurdles that TBAT encountered. Not to try to swoop in and try to solve it myself, since I trust the team's work on this, but simply for my own edification.

[SisterCoyote, formerly known as Coyote]

...Well this was an interesting thread to return to. I've been reading Slacktiverse (I picked up the auto-feed on my LJ a while back), but some of the code doesn't carry over, so there's always a long string of brackets and gibberish at the bottom, and I really miss the comment threads. Over at Patheos, it's quite fun (except the trolls, but that's an eternal battle, and even those can be fun when you've got people willing to step up with a clue-by-four-- some of the most beautiful comments on the web, both on the Typepad site and the Patheos one, were a response to ignorance and cruelty. Like a beacon. Anyway.

The point is, we're missing voices at Patheos, like Pius Thicknesse, if he's still around, and usually Jason, and Kit, and a host of others. I miss you guys. And I really don't have any reason but habit to not lurk both comment threads.

So-- hullo again, dudes various and sundry!

Also-- what Literata said. The TBAT here has been doing an awesome job, and from the quality of the posts and their frequency and punctuality, anyone accusing them of being lazy or dishonest is either delusional or has been paying no attention whatsoever. Come on, dude. There are ways to offer help with projects like this, if you feel your help would be... well, helpful. That was not one of them.

[SisterCoyote, formerly known as Coyote]

Aaaaand in the first comment I forget to close a parenthesis.) There. Now we can all sleep tonight.

[SisterCoyote]

Oh! And I second Vampires as a nomination. That post was awesome.

Also-- didn't Fred used to have a sidebar, "Repeating myself" or somesuch? IIRC, some of his best work was on there, but I don't remember many of them. But definitely Vampires. I'll look back through my own records, too, I'm sure I've linked in the past to some of the awesome posts on LJ or otherwise.

[Tonio]

I second SisterCoyote's praise of TBAT. Also, is there a Firefox plug-in that I can use to automatically get updates to comment threads both here and at Patheos, and any other sites I can add? It would save me hitting Refresh every half-hour or so.

[Mmy]

@Sister Coyote: Thanks :)

Also re: Also-- didn't Fred used to have a sidebar, "Repeating myself" or somesuch?

He did -- I just temporarily put it back up so people can see some of what Fred thought his best/most important work.

Most are fairly recent but they do give a sense of the themes he was repeatedly returning to.

[Will Wildman]

TBAT, allow me to say once more that I think you've been doing incredible work and shown astonishing dedication to the site and community, and we are enriched for it.

---

tlmrx, you are a curiosity.

I can't imagine you're an avid reader of the Slacktiverse or Slacktivist, since being exposed to humility and compassion would presumably cause you to disintegrate like a sandcastle in a wind tunnel.

I doubt that you honestly care about this process, based on both point 1 and the further probability that if you personally wanted to find any given post rapidly, your prowess is no doubt sufficient to design a tiny digital god to fetch it for you at a whim.

You're not offering to help, which is not exactly a shocker, but further supports the notion that you don't really view this as an opportunity to prove your remarkable skills by solving this problem that confounds others.

There's no evidence that you've ever posted before and I doubt you ever will again, so it's not like this is just the next conversation to come up and you've put your foot in your mouth. You have applied at least minimal effort to join the dialogue.

So in sum you're an unknown figure who has appeared from nowhere to declare that he is smart and everyone else is lazy, in a context where he doesn't actually have any interest in the outcome of the situation and doesn't actually intend to assist, meddle, or interpose himself at all.

You're like a weird hybrid of the Lone Ranger and a colossal jackass.

[Phoenix]

It would be more honest to admit that nobody is willing to do the work. There are a variety of solutions which trade effort needed against the effectiveness and reliability of the solution. All of them seem preferable to dead links.

@tlrmx.org - I'm not sure how you intended this to come across but I found it awfully rude. The moderators here do a tremendous amount of work to make this site accessible, useful and enjoyable for everyone. As far as I know, they are not compensated in any way for this. They're volunteers.

What are you suggesting here? I admit I know next to nothing about the technical constraints in play here but it seems presumptuous in the extreme to expect volunteers to create links for, what is it, three years worth (?) of a prolific blogger's material.

[Sixwing]

TeaBat: I think it's awesome that you're creating links for a small number, and wish you all the best in finding those best posts. (There are so many.)

I nominate:
H-E-double hockey sticks, found here: http://slacktivist.typepad.com/slacktivist/2009/03/h-e-double-hockey-sticks.html

Getting laid off is not the same as getting fired: http://slacktivist.typepad.com/slacktivist/2010/12/getting-laid-off-is-not-the-same-as-getting-fired.html

The clod and the pebble and the politics of resentment: http://slacktivist.typepad.com/slacktivist/2010/08/the-clod-and-the-pebble-and-the-politics-of-resentment.html

Chairface Carpathia: http://slacktivist.typepad.com/slacktivist/2010/11/tf-chairface-carpathia.html

Please forgive me for the actions of extremists I have never met who commit acts of violence that I have never advocated: http://slacktivist.typepad.com/slacktivist/2010/08/please-forgive-me-for-the-actions-of-extremists-i-have-never-met-who-commit-acts-of-violence-that-i-.html

And I'd better quit or I will archive-dive all day long, but Jackie at the Crossroads and the Fatted Calf were both really good, as was all of Sex and Money and the Subsidiarity series and I'm only halfway through last year, so I really had better get back to work.

[cjmr]

Yes, definitely "Getting Laid off is not the same..."

[tlrmx.org]

What are you suggesting here?

Honesty, nothing more.

And it's a lot more than three years. http://slacktivist.blogspot.com/

[Mmy]

@Tonio: Since I'm involved in web programming myself, including server-side scripting, I would be interested in reading about the technical hurdles that TBAT encountered. Not to try to swoop in and try to solve it myself, since I trust the team's work on this, but simply for my own edification.

I am not even sure how much it is a story that we can tell since the conversations involved are not ours to pass on.

Everything started out with a simple "if you can send the archive to us we will try to import it to our system" -- and then problems just cascaded from there. All the standard "just do this and then that" guides are for archives that are a magnitude smaller than the one Fred left behind. It took, without exaggeration, 2 weeks of downloading/translating/uploading just to get the archives into a form that the people at Patheos could work with directly. At which point the problems with the disappearing comments started to occur at their end.

Fortunately, at every stage in the process we did backups so nothing was lost and people at Patheos were willing to try to import again.

My *guess* (and it will remain a guess because no one has the time to delve into it) is that platform of Fred's original blog was not designed to carry the number of posts or comments it finally came to hold.

There are an incredible number of glitches we run into every day (you want to know why there is uneven spacing in places on the sidebar? so do we. Identical code does not always result in identical effects.)

[Mmy]

@Phoenix: I admit I know next to nothing about the technical constraints in play here but it seems presumptuous in the extreme to expect volunteers to create links for, what is it, three years worth (?) of a prolific blogger's material.

Fred's first Slacktivist post was Misplaced daily priorities on September 22, 2003. From that date, to the day he moved to Patheos, he published over 2,000 posts. Many of those posts had hundred (and some thousands) of comments.

@tlrmx.org: Honesty, nothing more

I honestly don't know why you are here. If you don't like the way the place is run then don't hang around.

[Tonio]

Mmy, thanks for the background. I would like to think that Slacktivist was by far the most popular blog on Typepad and that our little community was inadvertently bringing that platform to its knees.

you want to know why there is uneven spacing in places on the sidebar? so do we. Identical code does not always result in identical effects.

Familiar to anyone who has tried to code HTML to look the same in competing browsers, some of which were years old and buggy (*cough* IE6 *cough*)

[Kit Whitfield]

Ooh, second the nomination of Please forgive me for the actions of extremists I have never met who commit acts of violence that I have never advocated: http://slacktivist.typepad.com/slacktivist/2010/08/please-forgive-me-for-the-actions-of-extremists-i-have-never-met-who-commit-acts-of-violence-that-i-.html

--

tlmx: let's put it this way. To link to every post on Patheos would be impossible without one of two things happening:

1. Paying a professional a very large amount of money. This cannot be done because the site does not have a large amount of money at its disposal. We are, as Phoenix says, volunteers. We don't earn a penny from this site. The ads generate a very small amount of revenue, which is used to pay for the use of the website.

2. Our own mmy having no life at all for a very, very long time - I'm talking an indefinite, possibly infinite period - cutting into both her personal life and her earning capacity, and since she has some medical problems, very possibly jeopardising her health as well. A decent person would consider that option out of the question, and therefore would concede that re-linking every post was, indeed, not possible.

I am going to be charitable and assume you have some kind of neurological problem that makes it difficult for you to understand language as it is commonly used. The statement that it was not possible was honest in the colloquial sense, which is to say, it could not be realistically done with the resources we have at our disposal. Most people understand this.

[Mmy]

@Tonio: Familiar to anyone who has tried to code HTML to look the same in competing browsers, some of which were years old and buggy (*cough* IE6 *cough*)

Oh, speak to me sibling!!!!!

I will code a page -- it looks fine on browser#1 on my computer, browser #2 on my computer, browser #3 on my computer and browser #4 on my computer. It looks fine on both browsers on spouse's computer. It looks fine to everyone who has access the preview format check.

Then we post it and someone, somewhere can see it properly. Since that someone probably has no choice about the browser (and the settings *cough--work computers--cough*) I then read through the code trying to find what totally normal string of code is causing the problem.

And TypePad is, let us say, idiosyncratic. And what tweaks have been made have no *rems* -- the only way I know what they do is to change them and see if the site collapses. [Yup, always do a new backup before I change anything.]

[cjmr]

That must be extremely frustrating, Mmy! Thank you for all the time you've devoted to this.

[Laiima]

I nominate (agree w others who have nominated):

http://slacktivist.typepad.com/slacktivist/2009/04/the-burkhalogic-of-nom.html

http://slacktivist.typepad.com/slacktivist/2010/09/jackie-at-the-crossroads.html

http://slacktivist.typepad.com/slacktivist/2010/10/hold-on-to-the-good.html

http://slacktivist.typepad.com/slacktivist/2005/11/lb_the_visitati.html

http://slacktivist.typepad.com/slacktivist/2010/12/getting-laid-off-is-not-the-same-as-getting-fired.html

http://slacktivist.typepad.com/slacktivist/2010/08/please-forgive-me-for-the-actions-of-extremists-i-have-never-met-who-commit-acts-of-violence-that-i-.html

http://slacktivist.typepad.com/slacktivist/2010/08/the-clod-and-the-pebble-and-the-politics-of-resentment.html

whichever one is Huck Finn and "alright I'll go to hell!"

I'm sorry, there's so many that seem like they should be required reading...

[Laiima]

yes, loads of thanks to mmy!!! and all the TBATs!!! we are so lucky to have such dedicated, talented, and hard-working volunteers!

[Kit Whitfield]

I nominate the 'Gay-hatin Gospel' series.

[MaryKaye]

I nominate "Jackie at the Crossroads".

[hapax]

I nominate "Vampires and Crosses".

[hapax]

I nominate "Who made Steve?"

[hapax]

I nominate "Jackie at the Crossroads."

[tlrmx.org]

Let me see -- you make suggestions that indicate you don't understand the underlying issues. The logical implication is that you may have ideas but they are not accurate ideas.

Here's a blog built from a standard Movable Type Import File:

http://marvinfenderson.typepad.com/

The MTIF used to build that was generated automatically from the list of Fred's 2004 Left Behind posts. If you were to delete the current Left Behind posts here in accordance with the wishes of Patheos and then import the same MTIF here, the existing URLs people have bookmarked, and which have been indexed by search engines, will direct people to a short message and to a link to the right post on Patheos.

Right now, what's going to happen is that those people will get a blank white page and no way forward.

[hapax]

I nominate LBTM: Jesus Met The Woman (http://slacktivist.typepad.com/slacktivist/2008/12/lbtm-jesus-met-the-woman.html)solely on the strength of introducing the concept of Jesus as The Man in the Goofy Hat, which has rocketed to near the top of my personal images of the Incarnate Word.

[hapax]

tlmrx, I see that you have difficulties with reading comprehension.

Let me try to word this very simply, in real short words, okay?

Lots of folks have spent lots of time on this. These are very smart folks. They know tech stuff real good.

They can't make the blog do what you want.

What you see in this post up there is the best we can do. You can like it, or not. There is not a third choice.

Well, there is. You can mail Fred Clark and tell him how smart you are. He might hire you.

We will not. We do not own those posts. You do not own those posts. Fred Clark owns those posts.

Thank you for your time.

[P J Evans]

Wasn't teabat or someone posting very similar comments around a few months back when the whole move-the-posts thing started? I seem to recall several comments from someone who said pretty much the same thing about how it should be easy.

[Mmy]

@tlmrx: If you were to delete the current Left Behind posts here in accordance with the wishes of Patheos and then import the same MTIF here, the existing URLs people have bookmarked, and which have been indexed by search engines, will direct people to a short message and to a link to the right post on Patheos.

That was looks like one of the options that was already considered. Wrote a file that looked something like that myself (for a different year.)

Right now people are more worried about getting the posts moved and the archive up at Patheos. In time other things may be done. Not your call.

It's Fred's call.

[Kit Whitfield]

tlmx: I repeat, this is not up for discussion. Stop trying to derail, stop waving your e-peen, and stop being a nuisance. Either stick to the subject or go away.

[Kit Whitfield]

Wasn't teabat or someone posting very similar comments around a few months back when the whole move-the-posts thing started? I seem to recall several comments from someone who said pretty much the same thing about how it should be easy.

Yep. Complaints from people who insist it should be easy have dogged this process. Generally the complainers are not people who have actually contributed useful work such as writing articles, and they tend to be unwilling to accept that mmy actually knows what she's doing and that when she says 'This can't be done', she is speaking from a position of knowledge rather than ignorance. We're all fed up with it.

[lemming]

I nominate "please forgive me for the actions of extremists I've never met."

[J. Enigma (the Transhumanist)]

Fred made a post about animals and them going to heaven that had a twist ending that re-framed the entire article, responding to a comment left by one of the community members. For the life of me, I can't remember what it was called, but I nominate (or second, or third, the nomination of) it. I'm sorry couldn't pony up a link, but I just can't remember what it's called right now.

[Kit Whitfield]

The Huckleberry Finn post is: http://slacktivist.typepad.com/slacktivist/2005/12/lb_the_rise_of_.html

[aravind]

I nominate "please forgive me for the actions of extremists I've never met" also.

[aravind]

Also, Mmy (and the rest of TBAT, but especially Mmy), I think we definitely owe you mounds of thanks for all the work you've sunk into this. Don't listen to the trolls, those of us who've been here longer know how much you've done, even if we don't mention it as often as we should.

[Lonespark]

TBAT, thank you for all your hard work.

[Lonespark]

I nominate the following:

LB: Jesus Met The Woman

Vampires and Crosses

Sex and Money

Who Made Steve?

Please Forgive Me for the Actions of Extremists...etc.

[Nicolae Carpathia]

Since there's going to be a big link to the LB archive in the sidebar anyway, should LB posts be disqualified from this list?

[Mmy]

@Nicolae Carpathia: Since there's going to be a big link to the LB archive in the sidebar anyway, should LB posts be disqualified from this list?

This is just so there is an easy way to get to favourite posts -- right now the Patheos Archive is just chronological.

Probably everything will be different in 6 months -- hopefully for the better!!

[Kit Whitfield]

I nominate one of the NABA posts. Probably this one:

http://slacktivist.typepad.com/slacktivist/2005/06/threshholds.html

[Lonespark]

Yes, that's a good one.

I also nominate Thresholds.

[tlrmx.org]

At the time of posting, The Board Administration Team have managed to replace several of the posts nominated in this thread with new posts containing a link to the Patheos blog article, and an explanation of what's going on. That ought to be all well and good, except that so far they've failed to preserve the URLs of the original posts, so incoming traffic (including from Fred's current blog, which in some cases links back here) could lead into a black (or more literally white, in this case) hole.

e.g. instead of
http://slacktivist.typepad.com/slacktivist/2009/09/vampires-crosses.html

there is now a post at
http://slacktivist.typepad.com/slacktivist/2009/09/vampires-crosses-1.html

[chris the cynic]

Is this still open for nominations?

I've been kind of out of it the last few ... days I hope, if it's weeks that would be really bad. Anyway, I've been kind of out of it and didn't notice this until recently.

I think just about everything I'd want to nominate has been nominated except for
http://slacktivist.typepad.com/slacktivist/2011/01/playoffs-and-rocking-chairs.html

Actually, I also don't see:
http://slacktivist.typepad.com/slacktivist/2009/11/nobel-theology.html

Which is one of only two posts that I've directed people not from here to (the other one being the previously mentioned, "Left Behind: Rise of the Anti-Huck".)

So I'd like to nominate those two if nominations are still open.

[Mmy]

@tlrmx.org: At the time you were posting TBAT were going through a trial run, attempting to get TypePad to so something. TypePad is, at the moment, seeing changes in posts as "new versions" and giving them a new link address. Yes, we know how to fix that.

Do you have nothing else to do but sit around and monitor other people's websites looking for things to complain about?

Please knock off the "that is well and good" language and stop trying to critique a process that isn't finished and about which you are short of facts and inside knowledge.

[tlrmx.org]

Yes, we know how to fix that.

I'm glad to see it.

Do you have nothing else to do but sit around and monitor other people's websites looking for things to complain about?

The fact that some URLs no longer resolved was reported to me by automation in the course of its job preparing an MTIF containing all the nominated posts. It also discovered that some of the more recent material was not (yet?) in Fred's archive.

If it was merely all about "looking for things to complain about" I'd have made a big deal of the fact that Monday was the 15th of the month not the 14th.