MGoBlog 3.0: An Update
Previously: The Preview
Coming soon: a groundbreaking series on 40 times
Sorry this is coming on a Saturday but I just got back from Chicago and figured best to get it out sooner than later.
So as you’ve no doubt noticed, the new site is taking awhile to roll out. Yes it is still happening, but each setback has pushed back the timetable to the point where we’re getting up against the start of the season. Right now they’ve given us a very barebones dev site (above) to find all the glowing errors and make sure it feels like it should. Then we’ll have a beta version, with content from the main site, for beta users to play with. We’d rather do it right than throw out a half-baked solution.
I want to reiterate that HUEL—which is what we're finally getting Ann Arbor-based site developer Human Element to call themselves—have been awesome. A site as old as ours can develop some pretty big hurdles to modernization and previous comers were never able to get past Level 1. HUEL is now on 7, and have already worked through more unforeseen monkey wrenches than I’ve bothered to count. Without them I don’t know if this ever happens.
Jason, the CEO of Human Element, can explain it better than I can.
I want to let everyone know that both the HUEL and MGoBlog staff are diligently working on the site upgrade every day, and while it was our goal to have the new site up before the football season, software is hard. We are performing a 2-version upgrade from Drupal 6 to 8 while maintaining current required functionality, data and user history. At the same time we are adding new functionality and features as part of a complete overhaul of the user experience and site design. We have made significant progress and have solved all the major technical issues but we haven’t had the time for proper user engagement and beta testing and do not want to want to push a product that isn’t up to our quality standards.
It is our short term goal to stabilize the existing site’s hosting (thanks Nexcess!), while finishing the last pieces of the upgrade and redesign. We are going to use this extended time period to sync data from the current site to the new site on a schedule and allow selected BETA testers to provide feedback until both teams feel the site is ready for initial release. We will then move into a cycle of maintenance and improvement that should continue to improve the user experience over the next few years.
The new site will be bigger, stronger, faster—but it’s just taking a little longer than we hoped.
--Jason
You may see the site go offline at times in the middle of the nights as we prepare to shift to Nexcess servers from the one Brian and his brother built years ago.
[Couple of notes in response to prior feedback after the jump]
By category:
YOUR SITE IS BUGGY
“WELCOME TO YOUR NEW DRUPAL SITE” errors This is, as I understand it, a problem with the current site that Brian is trying to fix. We can restore right away when it happens but haven’t been able to get to the root of the issue yet. This is on us not HUEL; we hired them to build us a new site and this is a problem with the old one.
USER EXPERIENCE
You keep your points and the plus/minus system in general. We were gonna do away with these or start everyone back from scratch but our forces were finally cornered in a canyon and our attempt at a flanking maneuver was cut off and finally our military advisors recommended total surrender was the only option.
The site will be device-responsive. Depending on what you’re reading it on the layout will be subtly or dramatically different. The mobile version of the site will look much like an app. We’ll have an app eventually but the mobile version lets us get the site out quicker.
We will still be free. It’s the only way you’ll take your Draftageddon and like it. Also it’s what we believe in.
No we don’t have pop-up ads or autoplay ads. We run just 2 ad networks and sell the rest ourselves. Once in awhile somebody sneaks something past Google Adwords and there’s nothing we can do about that, but we take all possible measures not to have autoplay ads and pop-ups.
Comments & threads will be collapsible. This is a feature we demanded that we’re really excited about. If you don’t want to read the 40 replies about turtles to a comment you can quickly collapse it and move to the next thread. Threads go down to about 4 nested within each other then it’s just a thread so no more shrinking shrinking shrinking replies.
Embedding should work. Drupal 8 should be way better at handling easy embed code of twitter and youtube and stuff.
LOOK AND FEEL
The banner isn’t being done by a professional firm. It’s being done by MonuMental, aka Jeremy Zieders, aka the guy who makes those awesome weekly wallpapers and puts them in the diaries, and designs the covers and section pages of HTTV every year.
Decks are coming. The main article view won’t show them but we’re going to have to write summaries of our articles so you can be more picky about what you read.
Organization. We’ll be using the same taxonomy (the tags on each post), but they’ll be more obvious in the new layout.
CAN WE HAVE THESE NICE THINGS?
Threading will be in the same order, not dynamic. It’s by creation date. Posts are by time. Too much work for the server to be constantly re-sorting and we are going for speed and stability over more functions.
No on reply notifications for now. It’s a feature we like about SBNation boards but not so important that it needed to be part of the rollout.
No on auto-refreshing. Again, server loads.
A calendar of all things is a good idea. Won’t be in the initial implementation but we plan to retain HUEL to add new things after.
Those old links are gonna disappear. Sorry Jonny. So many of those links are defunct now anyway.
Search function is still run by Google. Again this is a thing that keeps our server load down. Let Google’s servers handle that work.
No on user tagging. Again, stability and speed over fancy functions.
The “Tab” feature only worked with Drupal one. But we’re talking to Transmitter Brewing about F2.
No private messaging. WAAAY beyond what we’re equipped to handle.
No upload photos. It’s a security risk.
Formatting and easy embedding in comments and posts. We’ll be adding features as we go after launch since these are time-consuming and not necessary to start with.
Where is my HTTV? Email me Ken, if it hasn’t come yet the mail lost in and I’ll send you a new one.
August 21st, 2017 at 9:53 AM ^
Because Brian is a software engineer and an open sourcer. He likes being able to make a new plug-in and commisserate with those who do.
August 19th, 2017 at 11:58 AM ^
Contrast on the selected item with the background is way too low, that search bar is painfully out of palce and small, font size/color for tagline is off, overall height size of this section as well as the header seems needlessly large....
Do you guys want some testers to get feedback from?
August 19th, 2017 at 12:00 PM ^
August 21st, 2017 at 9:34 PM ^
August 19th, 2017 at 12:01 PM ^
Any badges for mgoblog vets? Any superficial reward system to use points toward? Partridge? Pear tree?
August 19th, 2017 at 4:25 PM ^
Everyone on the site since a certain date should get a badge. I'd say, just picking a random date to cut it off, somewhere around August 4, 2008 would work good.
August 19th, 2017 at 11:53 PM ^
there should be an original year badge, then you get one at ten years, twenty years,thirty, etc. I think that would be cool.
also posts per year could have a restraint badge or something like that.
jdon
August 20th, 2017 at 1:51 AM ^
I was lurking back in the halcyon days.
August 20th, 2017 at 11:36 AM ^
Indeed, I first started reading about a year before I actually joined. Man what a fool I was!
August 19th, 2017 at 12:02 PM ^
when clients say "Publishing print magazines is too hard and expensive—putting them up on the web is much easier and quicker."
August 19th, 2017 at 1:11 PM ^
August 19th, 2017 at 1:11 PM ^
August 20th, 2017 at 12:45 AM ^
August 19th, 2017 at 1:34 PM ^
I hope [email protected] is a working email because that is the one I used.
August 21st, 2017 at 9:54 AM ^
it is
August 19th, 2017 at 1:36 PM ^
understand or care about all of the details to be honest - but know this........Mgoblog is like heroin in my vein - I must have my twice daily fix - do whatever is necessary to keep me from any withdrawal symptoms.
Sincerely,
An addict
August 19th, 2017 at 5:16 PM ^
Sent from MGoBlog HD for iPhone & iPad
August 19th, 2017 at 2:23 PM ^
August 19th, 2017 at 4:08 PM ^
If it's the application architecture and design, moving it to the cloud is not going to help. I strongly suspect architecture and design are the problem here.
August 19th, 2017 at 4:58 PM ^
that's clearly a server issue, and if you're in the cloud, load balancing and solutions for that is very economical.
But you're correct that the random "your drupal site" errors are application/API issues.
August 19th, 2017 at 5:15 PM ^
Sent from MGoBlog HD for iPhone & iPad
August 19th, 2017 at 7:22 PM ^
We had a situation where a large retail customer I can't name was having all kinds of trouble with their web site on Black Friday. Most of their web and application servers were lightly used, but their backend database was getting hit really hard. They were mystified, too, as they'd done extensive load testing in the weeks before.
The problem turned out to be a little snippet of code some genius in upper managment had forced in after the code freeze with some badly optimized SQL queries. They took that out and everything was fine. (They fired a bunch of people after this, but not the genius in management.)
This is not to say there aren't benefits to moving into the cloud. You still have to design, manage and pay for your applications in the cloud, and depending on what you're doing and how much you need in the way of resources it's not necessarily cheaper. I think Brian is being sensible to rearchitect everything first.
August 19th, 2017 at 4:51 PM ^
Sure, it is a smaller (started in Michigan) remote hosting platform than an AWS, but I imagine that was a decision made to "buy local"?
August 20th, 2017 at 7:54 AM ^
This isn't a good place to buy local. Scaling requires lots of resources and the local service provider isn't going to have it. Brian & Seth are either A) going to pay for lots of servers doing very little most of the time or (more likely) B) going to have the site crash every time something interesting happens.
The solution isnt very hard and you don't need to rewrite or massively rearchitect. It's basically a Load balancer and an autoscaling front end. It's not like the posts can be generated so fast that you need aything other than a decent mysql backend. I imagine content consumption ~100x content generation
Here's the guide:
August 21st, 2017 at 10:00 AM ^
Brian can explain better but we rail it, which is the same as autoscaling. Nexcess may be local but they're not small and they were also MGoBlog fans who deeply care if they can't read a Hello Post right away.
Most of the server bandwidth issue was solved when we got rid of the apps. The iTunes HD app in particular was set up to constantly passively ping the server and download new content. That turned out to be 2/3rds of our load.
August 19th, 2017 at 2:31 PM ^
This line got me thinking,
You may see the site go offline at times in the middle of the nights as we prepare to shift to Nexcess servers from the one Brian and his brother built years ago.
Brian is Gilfoyle? Gilfoyle is Brian? And for that matter, Seth is Ehrlich? Ace is Bighetti? I am Jared? If you knew what I look like, you'd say the resemblance is uncanny.
If I could ever figure out how to copy and paste images from other websites from my home computer, you guys would all be laughing your asses off right now.
August 19th, 2017 at 2:43 PM ^
Sell the ads yourselves? Does that mean the return of sexybits avatars and kate upton?
Not that I'm endorsing that type of thing. Or criticizing it.
August 19th, 2017 at 2:49 PM ^
August 19th, 2017 at 2:53 PM ^
The new site will be bigger, stronger, faster—but it’s just taking a little longer than we hoped.Sounds like Michigan's growth under Harbaugh a bit.
August 19th, 2017 at 5:58 PM ^
really? you think people are dissapointed with Harbaugh's performace so far?
August 19th, 2017 at 9:38 PM ^
August 19th, 2017 at 3:39 PM ^
August 21st, 2017 at 9:27 PM ^
August 19th, 2017 at 3:39 PM ^
Changing the site right before the season?
Bold move, Cotton.
Bitching about the new site is going to become the new bitching about Drupal.
August 19th, 2017 at 3:58 PM ^
August 19th, 2017 at 5:52 PM ^
Let's have it in English, Poindexter.
Am I going to have to put coal in it? Plug it in? AAA batteries? Does any of this mean they may have to delay the start of the season if the website isn't running? It's all so confusing...
August 19th, 2017 at 9:17 PM ^
August 19th, 2017 at 5:52 PM ^
August 21st, 2017 at 10:02 AM ^
1 thousand users? Dude we're 10 to 100x that.
August 19th, 2017 at 9:53 PM ^
August 19th, 2017 at 10:06 PM ^
August 20th, 2017 at 2:03 AM ^
before or after the 2017 UM football season? Might thought is the beta testing would have to go on for at least a few months. If you ever want to see old mogoblog post use the wayback machine at https://web.archive.org/web/20070901000000*/http://www.mgoblog.com
August 20th, 2017 at 6:40 AM ^
While I very much appreciate the effort that Brian and others are putting in on this project, the benchmark should be the better websites that are offered by other fan bases. While I'm certainly no fan of OSU, why can't we emulate the functionality of the 11 Warriors website?
To say it takes too much horsepower to do dynamic this or dynamic that simply makes no sense. How do the other blogs manage to use these functions.
August 21st, 2017 at 2:14 PM ^
is definitely a unique case. I think the primary difference in content between 11W and MGB is that they have a stronger focus on straight news-type substance, whereas MGB front page stuff is generally not just individual news stories, but generally aggregated into stuff like UV, recruiting updates, etc.
Also, the advertising approach on 11W is much more "conventional" with stuff like the "from around the web" or "you might like" random stories about "most embarrassing whatever" or "you won't believe what this celeb..." and "Guess who died without anyone knowing..."
They also do a better job of pushing their wares, advertising it all over.
And, as sad as it is, Quantcast says they have almost twice as many unique visitors in the last month. Of course, QC also suggests that MGB users are better educated, make more money, and more racially diverse. And somehow, the car make with the 2nd highest affinity among 11W users is Saturn which, like, okay...
August 20th, 2017 at 9:47 AM ^
August 20th, 2017 at 12:40 PM ^
I really appreciate all you guys do. I know nothing about the details of this transition, but whatever you guys decide to do that will make this experience better is awesome. I am also a crazy addict, but I'm mostly on the app on my phone. Because posting has been a challenge, I have been a lurker for quite some time. I'm really looking forward to the time when I can interact on my phone easily again. This season is almost here, and I just can't wait for the goosebumps... Go Blue!!
August 20th, 2017 at 4:03 PM ^
August 20th, 2017 at 6:32 PM ^
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