Tweaking the Bag

For those of you for whom The Bag has been near and dear to your heart, and especially to our loyal commenters who might be wondering right now where all the comments went (if they are still AWOL … like those Wisconsin Senators), here’s an update….

Since our makeover last April, we have been aware — in a few cases, wincingly — that the site was missing a few bells or was in need of some different whistles.  Having saved up a few dollars from your contributions, we are ready to tackle some modifications to boost our functionality.  Certainly, the WordPress commenting utility we have been using, especially after the Typepad system, has been pretty woeful. No comment previewing — an absolute must! No email notification. No signing in via other networks. And, who could figure out how to make a gravatar?  Anyway, we hope that once Disqus is fully installed, configured and shaken out (likely in the next day or so), we can get back to deconstructing the photos and talking back-and-forth in proper style … the way we have since 2004.

And then, we have a long list of other things we’re drawing a bead on, also. Shortly, for example, we’ll be: addressing the legibility problem in the Originals section which has been vexing so many of you (and, us too!); swapping out the weak slideshow utility and implementing some additional layout formats for looking at pictures; implementing a better way to share and tweet posts and view related posts; creating a submission method for tips, photo suggestions and your analysis; and a whole lot more.

In the meantime, I want to thank you for your loyalty to the site and your committed participation in the conversation. Above all, I can’t wait to start disqus-ing the pictures in a way that does greater justice to your ownership in The Bag and the quality of your thoughts and analysis.

— Michael