Arbor Update

Ann Arbor Area Community News

ArborUpdate's 1000th post!

15. September 2005 • Murph
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Check the url on this post – http://www.arborupdate.com/article/1000/

Thanks to all of you who have been reading the site, carrying the discussions, e-mailing tips, and giving us the encouragement we need to keep going.

A few favors to ask at this time:

First, we like feedback – both honest praise and honest criticism. Let us know what about the site you like and what you don’t like. (As a sub-question: If you read the site, but don’t comment, why not? What can we do to involve you?)

Second, if you’re interested in getting more involved, and becoming one of the crew who can make top-level posts, let us know. We’re always looking for fresh volunteers to help distribute the work.

Third, Scott has so far been hosting the site (not to mention doing all the techie work) out of pocket, and the Google ads recoup only a portion of that cost – he doesn’t complain about the cost, but he ought to. He’s looking at a lifetime hosting package to replace our current deal, and we’d like to ask for donations to help him cover the cost of that. I’ll let him explain the details, but, if you’ve ever had the urge to throw money at the site, here’s a chance to do it.

Thanks again.



  1. Congratulations, folks. I’ve enjoyed having the site around. And I don’t know how much it’ll help, but I just stuck ten bucks in a campus envelope and sent it Scott’s way.
       —Parking Structure Dude!    Sep. 15 '05 - 08:07PM    #
  2. Heh – note that Scott just moved to Brooklyn, so whatever campus address you have for him probably won’t get to him too quickly.

    One of us will stick up a paypal box or something…

    Thanks!
       —Murph.    Sep. 15 '05 - 08:15PM    #
  3. Shit, I forgot about that. And the UM directory hasn’t gotten the memo yet either. Fortunately the mail doesn’t go out until tomorrow morning.

    So now it’s burning a hole in my pocket. Can I send it to you, or would it just be a pain in the ass figuring out what to do with it?

    Otherwise, I’ll treat myself to a six-pack now, and when you put up the paypal box I’ll drop something in there.
       —Parking Structure Dude!    Sep. 15 '05 - 09:05PM    #
  4. I would gladly donate. Tell me how.
       —JennyD    Sep. 15 '05 - 09:10PM    #
  5. I ran across ArborUpdate only fairly recently and it’s an excellent local resource. I don’t mean to sound like a cheapskate, and I’d be willing to toss some coins in the hat, but my experience is that sites that depend on user donations have a harder time sticking around than others. Why not use a free (Blogger) or very low-cost (Typepad) blog host rather than hosting the site independently?

    Visually this site design is nice, but the commenting is kind of a pain compared to standard blogging tools. Every time you go to quote a previous response, you have to fix quotes and dashes or they appear garbled.
       —mw    Sep. 16 '05 - 07:54PM    #
  6. Blogspot and typepad kinda blow, and probably wouldn’t support the kind of traffic this place gets real well.
       —[libcat]    Sep. 17 '05 - 05:12AM    #
  7. I hate Textile (the formatting that our software, Textpattern, wants to use) too. But I studiously avoid knowing anything about the tech side of this site lest I be tempted to work on the tech side, so I don’t know what’s possible. I think Textile thinks it makes life easier because “you don’t have to learn html; you can just write everything in a way that makes sense!” But, tragically, there are dozens and dozens of formatting systems that make such claims, and all of them “make sense” differently, such that html makes far more sense than the collection of styles that all “make sense” differently. (Hello? Remember “standards”?)

    Turning on html (or limited html) might be possible. We’ve also occasionally talked about moving to Drupal, but I’m not touching that. If George or Brian want to step in and spend an afternoon migrating the site for us, I wouldn’t object.
       —Murph    Sep. 17 '05 - 03:51PM    #