Thursday Housekeeping: Good News and Bad News

It looks like the IntenseDebate comment system is mostly working. I’m still having a bitch of a time importing the old comments; I’m on attempt #6 and it has been stuck at 87% since 5:00AM. Hopefully that will get sorted today. Once that part is done, I’ll be able to fix the other settings so that the new comment system works on the mobile version too. I’m not positive about comment counts on the mobile site though. Now for a few tidbits:

– You’ll notice two new elements in the right sidebar. The first one is a new “recent comments” view. I think it’s pretty neat. Please let me know what you think.

– The other new element is the “top commenters” box. I’m hoping this will be a fun feature that will keep everyone engaged. The top spots are determined by the number of comments posted and the number of “thumbs up” ratings given. Please give each other props for comments that are entertaining, insightful, and fun. Please don’t give me any thumbs up ratings. I want this to be all about you guys.

– You’ll also notice that I’ve taken down the Amazon ads on the site. Unfortunately, California just passed a new Internet sales tax law and Amazon has decided to cut off all of its affiliates in California. This really sucks for me. I was finally getting to the point where Amazon was paying for my groceries. I wasn’t making enough money to live on, but it was helping. Now it’s gone. Hopefully I can find an adequate replacement. Perhaps Best Buy’s affiliate program will accept me…or one of you has discovered a rich uncle that wants to make a donation or purchase 1,000 RPad.tv t-shirts. Ha!

Author: RPadTV

https://rpad.tv

52 thoughts on “Thursday Housekeeping: Good News and Bad News”

  1. Dang it is back to the WordPress look again. I refreshed twice this time trying to get it to change. The last comment I just left on the HTC Status page was using Intense Debate??????????

  2. Well I'm glad I ordered my stuff when I did off of here, I'm going camping in two weeks and can't wait.

  3. RAAAYYYYPAADDDDD!

    Its like your website is giving me achievements…can't…..stop…..pos…ting.

  5. The iPhone version is tricky. I don't see any thumbs to speak of. I do see the recents as well as the top commentors though.

    When I get home, I'll figure it out and knock BB from the top spot the way the Steelers repeatedly do the Patriots.

    1. And… I think my WordPress account and my IntenseDebate account are fighting for supremacy.

      Normally, my money would be on Dudikoff over Ramis… But I heard Dudikoff called him "Crazy Legs" so all bets are off.

      *thumbs up if you get that old SCTV joke*

  6. recent comments are only working spoaradically for me, but i really do like the new comment system

    im sorry about amazon, ray….is there an ebay program thing? My gf buys a lot of crap of the ebay

    1. What do you mean that it's only working sporadically? What do you see instead?

      eBay affiliate sounds like a good idea. I'll search to see if they have a program.

  7. on the main page, most times i see nothing…however, if i click on a story, they work fine

  8. Wow I'm not happy about that law being passed either; really sorry to hear about that. I really enjoy shopping on Amazon in general, and it was even better knowing that it was helping the site in some way. Hopefully something else decent can work out soon enough, or a supplement will make itself available (like running everything through a p.o. box in Nevada so it's out of Cali. and use Smartguy's income tax knowledge to get away with not reporting it and still being able to use Amazon? lol).

  10. Hell yea that is the best part! I read that it was with a corespondent from NBC Florida.

  11. That sucks about the whole Amazon thing. My only advice for you would be to open up a P.O. Box in Nevada as your "business address" which can be something like Rpad.tv, LLC and then open up a bank account for that LLC in Nevada, but make sure it has a branch in L.A. This way, you can continue to do business with Amazon under your LLC in Nevada and have them (Amazon) deposit any commission/ACH payments in your bank account (in the Nevada branch). Later, you can withdraw the funds from a local branch in L.A. OR you can transfer the funds from your Nevada business bank account to your personal bank account in L.A. if it is a different bank (which would actually help increase the corporate veil). Also, since (I’m assuming) Amazon corresponds with you (or your LLC) via e-mal and not snail mail, so you’ll never have to worry about checking your physical P.O. Box in Nevada for correspondence. I'm sure Smartguy can elaborate on this a bit more.

    -M

    1. Also, I don't plan on giving anybody here a "thumbs down" since I like everyone here (even the people I don't like), but if one day Bobby Kocklick ever decides to post on this site, I'm giving him repeated "thumbs down" just on principle alone.

      -M

    2. haha that's exactly what I was thinking above!!! Nevada is close enough, I just don't know how exactly everything would have to work. I think it sounds like a good plan, and that way I can keep contributing to the site through amazon.

      1. Sorry. I read your post after I wrote mine, but it's comforting to see that great minds think alike.

        The only uncertainty that I can see is that I am not familiar with Nevada and/or California corporate law. I know that I can do something like this (if it was me) between Florida and Georgia.

        -M

      2. I agree, great minds think alike. I would think there could be a loophole somewhere, but I'm not familiar with any laws, codes, or regulations with this sort of thing. Maybe between your wife's knowledge and Smartguy's they could figure something out.

    1. Every time I post, my reputation score drops. The system must not like my comments :P

      1. Yeah I think they have to be GOOD comments. Lol. I'm kidding I haven't figured out the scoring yet either.

      2. haha yeah it seems a little sporadic, but I'm sure it will even out once all the kinks are straightened up. The same thing happened before with the One True Fan app that I use to post all the articles to twitter and facebook, you're supposed to get points for sharing links. I kept losing points per link shared. I didn't care too much though because I was doing it to share the links, not get the points.

  13. I know if you like someones comment that boosts the score and most likely posting first will catapult you to the top. Theories, just theories.

    1. Maybe….or maybe it's like FaceBook where if you like too many things at one time they will take away your privileges.

  15. Sorry about the Amazon stuff Ray. Not surprised unfortunately. They need a national standard on how to appropriately tax web purchases so that they don't have stuff like this happen.

  17. I'm going home now, someone has about 45 minutes to demolish my commenting madness, muahahahahaha!

    1. I don't know that I'll demolish your commenting madness, I'm too busy watch season 3 of Dexter. I'm almost done. Have you watched past the first two seasons on Netflix Instant Que? If not I have .mkv's of seasons 3 and 4 I can send your way.

  18. this is currently the only way it will let me log in or post anything. intensedebate and wordpress are both down for me and only give me error messages (using chrome in Win 7).

  21. The import is finally complete! The new comment system is now available on the mobile site too. Let's see how it all goes. I'll write a post tomorrow about the comment system and see what you guys dig/want/like/dislike.

    1. Finally, I thought you/we were going to have to switch it up again. Man you have incredible patience.

  22. I'm having terrible login issues. Is there a problem using safari on a desktop?

  23. Just tried to log in from the mobile site and had a nice experience.

    I tried both themes and the window to sign in it's really funky and lets me put one letter at a time before the swype keyboard closes.

  24. To be more clear that happens when I try to log into intense debate from the link below the comment box. The three white boxes below that work just fine, for me at least.

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