Blogger Bugs And Kottu
My friend the Blogger at RoyTho
There’s a bit of a brew about Memory Bank and time-stamps. Voice in Colombo pointed out that his posts were behaving as a ‘sticky’ on Kottu, remaining at the top. I noticed this and sent him an email to try and sort it out this morning. In the meantime I desyndicated the blog to avoid the ‘bad’ behavior. I usually prefer to resolve stuff like this over email, but he’s mentioned that he prefers a public forum. Otherwise I wouldn’t write this at all. In short, it is – as far as I can tell – a Blogger bug and not anything wrong with Kottu or malicious on Memory’s part. There is something called Future Posting, which I often do. If I write something late at night I’ll manually change the date to some time the next morning – so it publishes when people are awake. That’s fine. The problem (one of many) with Blogger is that it doesn’t future post correctly (Google Groups, etc). It changes the date to the future and publishes it immediately. In a sense having cake and eating it to. It is this bug that led to the Memory Bank affair. How that will be resolved I dunno.
Blogger was the first huge entrant into hosted blogging but it is also, in my experience, deeply buggy. The blogging part is OK, but the Atom/RSS syndication part is a mess. Blogger didn’t have RSS for years, opting for the less common Atom version. That may seem pretty geeky, but most apps I’ve found deal best with RSS2 and they’d have to write entirely new modules to deal with Blogger, if at all. Kottu (FeedWordpress) can parse Atom, but Blogger finally offers RSS now.
Another more major issue is timestamps. Kottu publishes posts in order, but that was actually a huge pain in the bum. Most blogs display the timestamp in standard GMT time, but some display it in local time + 6 or whatever, and Kottu has to somehow combine them. I got it sorta working, but note that Kottu doesn’t post times or even dates. With timezones the date was never quite right, so I just abandoned it.
When Blogger upgraded to Blogger Beta I remember that the feeds were completely fucked. For a few months all the Beta posts were dated like 3 or 4 hours ahead and never showed up properly. People complained, but there’s little I can do on the Kottu end with the amount of time I have. I just waited and Google fixed it.
The Memory Bank case is an example of an entirely different bug. Basically, Blogger doesn’t future post properly. Future posting literally means that the post appears in the future, but on Blogger it seems to appear immediately with a ‘false’ date. As a reader this is OK, though it can result in something called a sticky post. That is, if I date something to 2010 and post it, that will be the first story on my blog for the next 3 years.
This is not a Kottu bug. Kottu has shitloads of bugs, but this is actually a Blogger thing. Now VIC noticed this and pointed it out politely IMHO, though the headline was perhaps ill-advised. Now it’s this whole thing, and my response was to send him a private email, to the email we’d previously corresponded with. I’ll post my end here for reference, as he expressed a desire for a public forum.
I was doing some reading, and apparently there is a bug in Blogger with future posts (http://labnol.blogspot.com/2006/09/blogging-tricks-how-to-make-sticky.html ).
Future posting is perfectly fine, I do it all the time. Blogger, however, publishes future posts immediately rather than in the future as one might think. I’m afraid that this buggers up Kottu as well. I’ve desyndicated your blog until that bug gets fixed by Blogger, or you simply stop future posting.
He didn’t get that mail, but I did leave a comment on his site which he responded to. I resent the mail and added:
I usually try to send a personal email and resolve matters privately. In this case I did send you a mail at 7am to the address we previously used to correspond on. I have made every effort to contact you personally before taking this action, so I think saying I’m unprofessional is unwarranted, especially since Kottu isn’t a professional endeavor.
Kottu isn’t really something with a legal agreement involved, it’s really just a social space. There is no proscription against future posts, I personally do them all the time. If I type something late at night I future date it so that it appears first thing in the morning. Due to a bug in Blogger, however, your posts appear then and stay on top for the whole day. I hope you see that this is unfair to the other people that post throughout the day.
You’re perfectly free to future post on Blogger, but I simply don’t have the time to edit the Kottu parser for one blog out of 150. If you are willing to post items with the current data, I’d be happy to resyndicate.
So, that’s my end of it. Future posting doesn’t work with Kottu. I didn’t know this before but now I do. If you’re on WordPress or something you can still future post, and I still do. It’s actually very useful. If you’re on Blogger I don’t recommend. Memory Bank is still ‘desyndicated’, with notice, but if he’s willing to stop future posting I’d be more than happy to syndicate that blog again. Until then I think this is the best response, but anyone is free to comment. Again, I’d normally do this over email, but a public forum has its benefits as well. Again, it’s a Blogger bug to do with future posting. In fact, as far as I can tell Blogger is completely down right now.
I think now this clarifies lot of doubts about the whole issue, and we all now know what has happened and how.
If an apology could revert things about the ill advised headline of my post, I’m more than happy to make that apology now.
I actually decided, not to respond/comment/involve in anything related to this issue further. (Because few people has taken this as an opportunity to sling mud at me and Prabath, for unknown reasons)
But I got to make a comment here, since I was the one who started the whole debate.
I received few offensive (not taken as, though) anonymous comments, (I’m quite used to it) saying that, I urged Kottu admins to pull Memory Bank off Kottu, because I’m jealous about Prabath. I just laughed at them and deleted. Same way, according to Prabath’s latest post he too got some similar comments. No wonder, because we are blogging in Sri Lanka!!
So, now with this Indi’s post, anybody can know that it wasn’t me urged MB off Kottu. What I had to say about the incident, I’ve said with all the evidence I had (Like the fact that, same post got two different time stamps on Achcharu and Kottu)
All in all, Blogger caused the problems and hopefully things will be back to normal, unless if somebody else try to future post on Blogger in the future.
Weldone Indi… You should have done this before… I never liked his posts…
‘voice in colombo’ did well to start a debate on this. thanks.
quite apart from the question of whose bug it is, fact is it is still open for exploitation. that is why i hope a permanent fix making the posts list in kottu at the time they appear in the respective blogs be a better option than subjective ‘desyndication’ of individual blogs. admin’s time permitting of course. kudos to achcharu for doing that last week when this was first noticed.
subjectivity actions are always open for misinterpretation, ref chandima above
Thanks VIC. Memory Bank deserves exit from Kottu. He was creating stories on Ranil and finally found cheated.
Indi, we appreciate your move.
Chandima/Shamanga….Wait, wait, wait. I have made it very clear that I never expect a “kick off” on MB, and I’ve mentioned clearly that never had anything against Prabath in personal. In fact, I personally like to see MB back on Kottu. We need more “active blogs” like MB, on Kottu.
I just raised an issue I thought as unfair for other contributors. I do not have any authority over who should stay in Kottu or who should be kicked off.
Now it’s made very clear by Indi, that it was due to a blogger bug. But the question “Whether Prabath exploited the bug or not” is not answered yet, and only Prabath knows the answer. For example, the bug is Blogger publish future dated posts immediately. Kottu syndicate it as a sticky. So, if some one knew how exactly this “bug” works, there’s a fair chance for him to take advantage of that bug. We have a right to think that, the bug was exploited, because there were few posts on MB which has coming up, going down and coming up AGAIN on Kottu. So, unless if some one doesn’t change the time stamp for a “SECOND” time after publishing it, there’s no chance of it coming on top for a “SECOND” time.
Example. MB’s post about “Anonymous” and “Moody”
For what it’s worth, I think you handled the situation perfectly, Indi.
I’ve had the same problem with FeedWordPress and I have no idea how to fix it. Some websites have crap RSS feeds, with incorrect dates and times, which mess up the whole output. Newslanka.org has quite a few posts which are scheduled to appear sometime in 2011, for example…
As sittingnut says, the ideal would be for a post to appear on Kottu according to the time that the post was blogged (i.e. the time Kottu noticed that the blog’s RSS feed was updated).
So instead of taking the timestamp of the blog posting from the RSS feed output, Kottu should generate a timestamp of her own and add it to that post. Then the order of the list of posts on Kottu would be correct. I think.
Perhaps drac can offer some tips onhow he fixed the problem on Ach? Maybe n# can help too? I’m not technical enough to know how to code this, sadly. But will help where I can.
Please see my response to this at :
kottu be genuine
For the record, it has nothing to do with the content. I honestly haven’t read many of the posts and that is not at all a factor in who gets syndicated on Kottu. The only criteria are really original, Sri Lankan content (and basic libel, obscenity) – which Memory Bank more than satisfied. It was a fine blog and I wish it would consent to work around Kottu and be resyndicated.
Also, whenever there’s a problem with Kottu I generally desyndicate first for immediate relief and sort it out later. Often I don’t even have time to send a mail, which I did immediately in this case.
Sometimes a site will be down and Kottu chokes parsing that feed. In those cases I just desyndicate it and deal with the problem in time rather than stopping Kottu entirely. I know it’s a bit harsh, but the alternative in this case was to let the sticky posts remain all day while the thing was worked out. It’s fairly trivial to re-add a blog, so I don’t think it was out of line to desyndicate and then try to work the problem out over email.
Indi,
I was really upset since many of the bloggers accused Memory Bank for intentionally changing the time stamp of its posts. Even still now VIC thinks so. I just want to say, it was not intentional – it was just future posting.
If I want to be intentional , I have the capacity to do many other things as well – but I will never do.
Just as a reply for the people who think I was intentional at that time – please go through Kottu’s popular post list. you’ll find “kottu be genuine” at the bottom, which was posted after my blog being de-syndicated.
Indi – please remove it from there and I have intention to carry out any attacks against Kottu, also if you want to how I put there, I am more than happy to let you know.
Last two lines need to be corrected as;
Indi – please remove it from there and I have NO intention to carry out any attacks against Kottu, also if you want to know how I put there, I am more than happy to let you know.
Indi – irrelevant post here but my blog has dropped off Kottu and is still not back on. Sent you a mail on this.
my view is that kottu should manage the aggregation sorting 100% (which i have mentioned in my blog post)… because there will be other blog/cms software and its not like everyone would stick to a wordpress blog… and you cant expect ppl to comply with timestamp tampering esp now… and it is a flaw… and just that he (indi) is not willing to accept it as a flaw in wordpress…
kottu will have a problem with timestamp tampering till someone fixes the code in kottu.org… and because the tampered post will always be on top… and there are ppl who are religious about this whole thing… and blah blah blah… and they will always make a big deal about it… and its been such a big deal that the voice had not posted anything since then, in his/her blog!
but he (indi) has a different view… and he’s made a request/demand/whatever… and the fact remains that he wont tolerate timestamp tampering… and whats the big deal… i mean everyone else (including me) dont seem to have a problem with it…
i didnt like the way voice and rest of the guys pounced on MB… not cool! havent you read harry potter (i’ve not but i’ve seen ppl who have)… wars start like this… ah… the issues ppl have these days!
Prabath Siriwardena of Memory bank had been bashing Ranil in a total unethical way recently. This is not a surprise because he is from a family that was involved in left politics for a long time. His father [MODERATED - unwarranted and personal attack]
When somebody pointed out this and raises very valid counter arguments this guy took all the arguments that were against his opinion and blocked others saying anything against his view. Is this the democracy we talk on the net?
If Prabatha Siriwardena has a right to go on Ranil bashing, does not anyone else has the right to stand in defence of Ranil?
Memory Banks is not an independent blog, it is a one sided blog that only allows opinions of that confirms the opinion of the blogger.
(I post this here because Memory Banks does not let me post it in its blog. If he allow unmoderated, unedited comments in his blog, I am always ready to debate the matter with him. It is not ‘power play’ as he thinks.
To Kanabona,
//and its been such a big deal that the voice had not posted anything since then, in his/her blog!\\
Hah! haaa!
I could have posted at least 10 post per day, if I copy and pasted articles from any of these sources….
Refocus, Reuters, CNN Money, InformationWeek, Toyota,
Actually, I do have better jobs than copying and pasting articles from Refocus or reuters, to a blogspot.
Seel http://www.kanabona.com/
you forgot to mention the southpark studios video clips
:P
I think some people has taken this opportunity to spread their political messages. This is nothing related what party Prabath’s father supported or, what his political background is. Kottu SHOULD NOT ban any blogger, just because their political opinions are against a certain party.
There’s only two good solution for this. Prabath, just agree to behave like all the other “blogger.com” bloggers on Kottu. That is, not to future post. And, with that agreement, Indi can re-instate MB on Kottu.
Or else, as the “techy” guys suggest, Indi can re-code Kottu, to ignore time stamps set by the bloggers, and take the time the post was actually syndicated on Kottu (Like in Ach)
So, please stop dragging in politics to this. There’s nothing political. It’s purely technical!
Yes, for the love of mercy, his politics have nothing to do with it. It is perfectly right and well to criticize Ranil. Or Mahinda, or the kitchen sink. That has nothing to do with Kottu. If his posts just didn’t remain on top it would be fine. He also has no obligation to publish anyones comments.
Memory Bank is an upstanding blogger, the issue here is purely technical communication between Kottu and Blogger.
i thought that day kottu.org had stopped syndicating cause MB’s post was on top always.
I too, think this should not be peronal. As far as I see it isn’t. It’s a tech prob.
Ignoring all that’s bitter, I think indi has shown great tolerance.
Kottu, no matter what, is his baby. Who shouts what, he could have done any thing that pleases.
If it is only a technical problem, how come we see Memory Bank on the top of the blog even today for so many hours now?
Have you decided to allow future dating (which is definitively an unethical thing to do)?
Why MB (who does not believe in popularity) wants to engage in this unethical practice?
Memory Bank has no issue adhering to avoid ‘future posts’ – the post you see today was made as a future post, but before a compromise was made between me & Indi.
So no one needs to be blamed on this.
yes, chill pills all around. I’ll look into when I get home from work.
Dear Indi,
I was just wondering if the resetting of the “popular posts” section on Kottu after just one day of my last blog being posted was unintentional. No, I’m not making a complaint. I’m just curious.
Thank you for reading.
I meant “blog post”.
I just read the fiasco about what had occurred between Memory Bank and VIC. So I’m assuming that the resetting of the “popular posts” section is the “kill all ants because a couple bit you” approach. Completely understandable.
Thank you for reading.
It wasn’t. The database was just a huge mess and I dumped it. The clicks are starting over.
i thought..