Just a couple of quick notes related to our WordPress implementations, as some of you have been reporting problems and issues (thank you).
Ajax Commenting
I actually noticed this myself the other day, but was having some network connectivity issues of my own so I naturally attributed it to that. But after the Ajax commenting available on mine and James’ front pages continued to time out on me today, I dropped a quick note to Alex. Not only did he determine what the problem was – domain issues with respect to the Javascript we’re using – he walked me through a quick fix over the phone. As of an hour or so ago, the front page commenting should work whether you come in on redmonk.com/… or www.redmonk.com/… – please let me know if you have any further issues.
Page Load Time
As some of you have noticed, I’ve gotten a little widget happy since cutting over to WordPress. My right hand columns are now crammed with everything from del.icio.us links to Last.fm powered album covers to Twitter updates to MyBlogLog headshots. These features are interesting in that I think they make the experience more interactive, but they’re also a risk from a page load time perspective on two fronts: 1.) the reliance on third party Javascripts and data sources and 2.) the database hit for the local plugin (see more on that here). I wish there was a way of caching that content locally, but I think that would have to be worked out on a widget by widget basis, which isn’t happening. Anyway, I’ll be evaluating the load time over the next few weeks, and don’t be surprised to see a bit of pruning from a plugin perspective.
Trackbacks and Spam
A few of you have had issues getting trackbacks through – although it’s light years better now than with Movable Type. After a bit of back and forth with Simon yesterday, it would appear that Bad Behavior was denying his trackbacks, issuing an HTTP 403 in response. Because I don’t happen to consider Simon a spammer, I went ahead and turned off BB. His trackback was then promptly trapped by Akismet, but at least I can reverse that decision in its queue. If you have issues either with missing comments or dropped trackbacks, please do let me know. Chances are I can retrieve your comment/trackback now that I’m strictly using Akismet, but only if I know about it. Thanks.
