Arbor Update

Ann Arbor Area Community News

Arbor Update updates

Posted by Bruce Fields on 23. August 2009

We’ve done some minor updates of the software. The only user-visible change is that you should only have to pass the “image verification” step one more time; subsequent comments with the same user name and email will skip that step.

If you notice any problems, please let us know here or by email to arborupdate at umich.edu.

Any other problems or requests are welcome as well.

New short link posts:

There have been a number of links from the comments and in our inbox that deserve special attention, so we’ve added a new short-format post to accommodate them. They will contain a simple title, description, and link, but not discussion threads.

I’m still tweaking the design and implementation, and any feedback is welcome.

[Amended 8/29 by Matt]

Comment [3]

On Moderation

Posted by Murph on 19. June 2009

First, thanks so much for all the intelligent, insightful comments over the years. As has been noted in the past, AU wouldn’t be what it is without comments, and we try to take a light hand in policing them.

Recently, though, we have been receiving more questions and challenges about how we have addressed (or not addressed) certain comments. Bruce and Matt have spent an admirable amount of energy on trying to keep things functioning, but there comes a time when their efforts, and the discussion of their efforts, and the discussion of that discussion, takes up a little too much space, both on the website and on our e-mail list.

Consider this a reminder, and fair warning: we’re all volunteers here. We’re not the press, we’re not the government, we’re under no obligation to make every commenter happy, be “fair”, provide “free speech”, etc. If we remove a comment(s) it is because there has been a consensus on our email list. If we put a deleted comment back, same reason. If we close a thread, ditto. If we rewrite your comments into iambic pentameter, par for the course.

You can ask us to pull or put back a comment, or explain our actions, but you might not get a satisfactory response. Again, volunteers – limited energy. It’s not personal. But it is our website. If you want unmoderated nastiness in your comments, there’s always MLive, or you can start your own weblog.

In summary:

Moderator kitteh disapproves your submissions

Arbor Update Housekeeping

Posted by Bruce Fields on 22. April 2008

Regulars may have noticed that lately we’ve gotten a little less tolerant of abuse of the comments section.

The reason’s probably obvious to anyone who’s been around for certain extended threads: a small number of people posting the same arguments repeatedly, often under multiple pseudonyms.

With those few exceptions, the comments here are great, so we don’t need to give you an etiquette lesson! What you do need to know, however, is that:


  • Spam and abuse have gotten aggressive enough to require some automated filters, which will (apologies!) occasionally misfire. Please contact us (at arborupdate at umich.edu), if this happens to you—we’ll try to find the bug, and add your post for you if necessary.
  • People have occasionally had fun with screen names, without meaning any ill, but recent abuse has made this problematic. If you aren’t comfortable using your real name, that’s OK, as long as you pick a screen name and stick to it. (Alternatively, feel free to ask us or any other regular you trust to pass on your thoughts under their name.)
  • Please leave a working email address; we won’t give it out to anyone, but we might like to contact you to make sure you’re a real person or to resolve a technical problem.

There’s a rough comment policy on our about page. Be considerate and you should be fine.

Also, feel free to take this thread as an opportunity for any comments or gripes about Arbor Update in general.

Comment [24]

ArborUpdate Update

Posted by Bruce Fields on 12. November 2006

A software update this afternoon caused some temporary problems. In particular, if you tried to submit a comment then you may have been told your IP address was on a blacklist.

Everything should be back to normal now; if not, let us know here or at arborupdate@umich.edu. This is also your chance for any general complaints or feature requests.

Comment [5]

ArborUpdate's Second Birthday: 2 June 2006

Posted by Murph on 19. May 2006

It’s a mere two weeks from the second anniversary of ArborUpdate’s launch, back on 2 June 2004. Therefore, it’s time to announce the 2nd ArborUpdate Birthday Party.

Venue will be the traditional blogger hangout, Leopold Bros., on the evening of Friday, 2 June 2006. I’ll probably show around 7pm.

As usual, masks and cloaks are welcome, if you enjoy anonymity and want to keep it that way. Leave the daggers at home, please. RSVP on Upcoming.org or in comments.

Comment [10]

New Contributors and Arbor Updates

Posted by Dale Winling on 16. May 2006

Arbor Update announces some recent and upcoming changes to the site in order to improve our interface, broaden our content, and increase the usefulness of discussion on AU.

First, we welcome Guest Writers Heidi Sulzdorf, Ed Vielmetti, and Chuck Warpehoski. They will be expanding our content coverage to include, but not be limited to, food, drink and dining; technology and blogging; and peace and faith issues in the community. Veteran Brian Kerr will return to a writing and tech support role.

Second, we continue to solicit tips and introductions to local issues and events from readers via the link on the sidebar at the right. We also encourage readers to announce events using Upcoming.org, also available through a link at the right.

Third, we encourage readers to tag your flickr images with an ‘arborupdate’ tag and a Creative Commons license that will allow us to post your images to AU articles. This will help us make the site more visually appealing and may also bring more traffic to your flickr site. A Creative Commons license that uses any combination of “non-commercial use only”, “no derivatives”, and “attribution required” will allow us to link to your images easily; “share-alike” will not.

We thank you for reading and for continuing to make Arbor Update a unique and useful community resource.

Comment [23]

"Database unavailable" messages

Posted by Murph on 4. April 2006

You may have noticed a “Database unavailable” message coming up occasionally, instead of your hoped-for ArborUpdate fix. This is a known issue with our hosting service that happens periodically for short periods of time; tech support says,

We have located mutliple users whose sites have contributed to the MySQL issues, and have taken steps to prevent their abuse to continue. Sadly this hasn’t resolved the issue entirely, and we’re continuing to work to resolve these issues. We are confident that we will not only be able to locate the source of this problem, but that our upcoming changes, which include moving MySQL to a dedicated setup, will provide the improvements and uptime we’re all looking for.

Comment [1]

We're Back

Posted by Scott Trudeau on 12. February 2006

Some time on Thursday the server on which Arbor Update was hosted went down. I’m not sure exactly what happened, but I’ve moved the site to a new location (an overdue transition) and seem to have recovered the entirety of the site. I’ll be upgrading the software that powers the site shortly and if I have time, I’ll try to investigate what happened at the old server. Sorry we were gone and we’re glad to be back.

Comment [7]

"How to" Contribute to Arbor Update

Posted by Scott Trudeau on 16. December 2005

  • Send ideas for articles to arborupdate@umich.edu. We’ll be more likely to use your post if you provide text we can use for the article (just a sentence or two is often fine), include any relevant links, and tell us how you’d like to be credited (may we use your name? and would you like a link to your website?)
  • tag things in del.icio.us ““arborupdate”:http://del.icio.us/tag/arborupdate “
  • Apply to become a core contributor (people who can create main-level posts)
  • Don’t want to write but want to help out? Got tech skills? Design skills? We could use you. For example, we could really use a sort of “illustrator” who can find appropriate images on the web (or better yet, design new ones), prep them and include them with posts.

Comment [8]

Help Us Cover Costs

Posted by Scott Trudeau on 22. September 2005

For those of you that aren’t aware, I (Scott) have been covering the hosting costs for ArborUpdate and other, semi- and unrelated projects. I’ve removed the Google AdSense advertisements, which have been a disappointing attempt to recoup some hosting costs.

Recently, an Internet Service Provider with a very solid reputation (TextDrive) began offering lifetime hosting packages for $399 (where lifetime is my lifetime or their lifetime as a business); I trust they’ll be around awhile. This deal would host this site and related projects for the foreseeable future. I am planning to cover this one-time cost myself (since I will also be hosting personal projects w/ this package), but figured I’d give you all the chance to contribute something.

If you’ve ever found this site useful/helpful and worth a few bucks, please contribute. We’re also willing to consider sponsored matching donations from local business (e.g., match up to $50 or $100 of individual donations) in exchange for some form of not-too-obtrusive advertisement (Leopold Bros., the official beer & spirits of ArborUpdate? ;) ) on the site. Any money raised beyond the hosting fees will go into a fund to be spent at the discretion of the active ArborUpdate contributors.

(Also, the nascent New West Side Association and Ann Arbor Alliance will also be hosted on this account when their site gets an overhaul.)

PayPal is the easiest way to donate—click the “PayPal Donate” button on the right. If you don’t want to use PayPal, email ArborUpdate AT gmail DOT com for alternate payment arrangement.

Comment [19]

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