libcom upgrade update: changes beginning March 18

Working on the libcom upgrade

The major upgrade we happen working on for the past 4 years is moving forwards rapidly, and we anticipate major changes to the site on March 18, 2022. Read more about the upcoming changes and what they mean for our users below.

Author
Submitted by libcom on March 11, 2022

As we mentioned in our last update, we will be launching a basic, functioning version of the upgraded website. After launch we will be gradually making improvements and updates from that point onwards.
In particular, a number of extremely serious problems with the existing site will be fixed. Major improvements include:
– responsive design, adapting to your device, particularly smartphones
– reinstating a Search function for the site
– fixing new user registrations, so new users will be able to register and begin contributing to the site simply and easily
– fixing user account problems, like password resets. Users will be able to reset their passwords automatically if there are any issues with their account
– increasing security by better encrypting user information and eliminating insecure communication channels
– fixing the paging error, where now tag navigation frequently breaks
– massively simplifying the website structure, which is extremely complex and unwieldy at present.

As part of this upgrade, we will be getting rid of some poor quality and/or little-used features. These include:
– private messages for users
– user profile information
– libcom bookmarks
So as a reminder, if you have information you want from your user profile, or from your old bookmarks or messages, please ensure you get what you need from them by the end of March 17. And if you want to exchange contact information with anyone you have to date communicated with exclusively through libcom private message, please do so at your earliest opportunity. Because after the upgrade all of this information will be deleted.
Existing user accounts will still exist, don't worry about that. By user profile information, we mean the stuff like About me political labels, union membership, favourite thinkers lists like this one: https://libcom.org/user/14070
As we mentioned last time, this upgrade will result in increases to our hosting costs. libcom.org is only able to remain online because of support from you, our readers and contributors. So if you appreciate our site, please consider joining us on patreon to help us cover our costs and remain online: https://www.patreon.com/libcom
In solidarity,
libcom.org

Comments

Steven.

2 years ago

In reply to by libcom.org

Submitted by Steven. on March 17, 2022

From Mike:

Just to say this is still planned to start tomorrow afternoon UK time (mostly like around 2-3pm).

No promises, but it might be possible to leave this version of the site running at a different URL after the new site is live - however we can't spent lots of time dealing with that, because there are bound to be issues on the new site we only discover after switching over. This would only be for things things like downloading old pms, no posting content on here (or not that will last more than a couple of weeks before we switch this server off). If we do that, we'll post the URL here (and probably nowhere else).

Having said that several people have tested the new site at this point, and found bugs we've mostly fixed since, so it's probably as bug-free as it's going to get before actually going live.

petey

2 years ago

In reply to by libcom.org

Submitted by petey on March 17, 2022

i copied and pasted all bookmarks and took a picture of my profile, so you may now proceed.

Mike Harman

2 years ago

In reply to by libcom.org

Submitted by Mike Harman on March 18, 2022

Hopefully starting this in about 30 minutes. The site should theoretically stop everyone from posting content once it's started, but also please don't try and expect it to be lost if you do.

Fozzie

2 years ago

In reply to by libcom.org

Submitted by Fozzie on March 18, 2022

Thanks Mike!

Mike Harman

1 year 12 months ago

Submitted by Mike Harman on March 21, 2022

Don't tell anyone else, but the 'classic' version of the site is now available on https://old.libcom.org in case you forgot something there. Probably for a maximum of 2-3 weeks.

You'll get an SSL warning because it doesn't have a proper SSL certificate, so either need to click through the warning or use the http://old.libcom.org version.

Spikymike

1 year 11 months ago

Submitted by Spikymike on March 27, 2022

Search box doesn't seem to work well finding anything in Tags? Seems to have to load up endlessly to get anything in alphabetical order. Tried other main box looking to find the library editions of various 'Subversion' journals but didn't bring anything up either. Am I doing something wrong - still trying to find my way around?

Submitted by Steven. on March 27, 2022

Spikymike wrote: Search box doesn't seem to work well finding anything in Tags? Seems to have to load up endlessly to get anything in alphabetical order. Tried other main box looking to find the library editions of various 'Subversion' journals but didn't bring anything up either. Am I doing something wrong - still trying to find my way around?

At the moment, the main Search box only looks for articles, not tags (this is something we are going to look at changing in the future when we are able to). If you want to look through Tags, you need to go to the Tags index and use the Search box there.
If you go to the Tags index and search for what you want. So if you type "subversion" or even "sub", then it comes right up.
Not sure what the issue is with the other search box. I just tried typing in the word "Subversion" and the top result is the library entry for the journal containing every issue. And the subsequent results were each individual issue. And typing in "subversion 15", say, pulls up issue 15 of the journal.
So this gives you an alternative way of finding tags as well. Type what you want into the main search box, so in this case, "subversion", then click on one of the relevant results and look at the tags – then you can click on the Subversion tag.

R Totale

1 year 8 months ago

Submitted by R Totale on July 18, 2022

Is this where we put tech issues since the upgrade? If there's a more suitable place I can't find one. Anyway, just to mention that the system now doesn't seem to like brackets when adding new tags, so I just tried to add "Anarchist Communist Combat Organisation (BOAK)" and it couldn't handle it. Also just to check on how the person/category tag split works now - is it that the "author" tag is just for the actual author, and so any other person/org tags, such as an interviewee, should just go in the general tag section?

Mike Harman

1 year 8 months ago

Submitted by Mike Harman on July 18, 2022

@R Totale:

If you try adding the tag in quotation marks (i.e. strikes, "A complex tag with (brackets)", Peter Kropotkin) it ought to work. If that doesn't work, let me know and I'll try to look more.

"is it that the "author" tag is just for the actual author, and so any other person/org tags, such as an interviewee, should just go in the general tag section?"

If it's by Michael Seidman about the CNT, then Michael Seidman should be the author and CNT should just be a tag.

Note that while the fields are different, the tags vocabulary is the same - so there's no risk of duplicates (which used to happen on the old version of the site), it just affects things like the (not yet fully implemented) author listings and similar.

For interviews that is a bit borderline, if it's a long-form interview I'd probably tag the interviewee too.

R Totale

1 year 8 months ago

Submitted by R Totale on July 18, 2022

OK, I'll try that next time I need to try setting up a tag with brackets.