Comments on: Unions demand gay question on 2011 census

By: Robert, ex-pat Brit

Robert, ex-pat Brit — Thu, 14 Feb 2008 17:04:00 +0000

Ben, try as I can, I still cannot access readers' comments in the normal manner. Something is definitely wrong with Haloscan's programme. I've tried accessing comments via Explorer 7.0 and Firefox, I've even temporarily disabled my firewall during the process but neither browsers allow me to click on a comment and view it or post to it, unless I scroll over it and right click on "open in a new window". Was working fine until monday of this week. Could you please keep us posted on the situation, obviously there are still some of us who are having problems? Thanks.

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By: Robert

Robert — Thu, 14 Feb 2008 14:38:00 +0000

dai, I'm glad you can access comments normally. As for the problem with the letter "d", no idea what to tell you.I'm still not able to access comments in the normal manner either. I appreciate that Ben is working on it, but for me, its still no resolved.

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By: Robert

Robert — Thu, 14 Feb 2008 14:37:00 +0000

Ben, I still can't click on a reader's comment and open it. I still have to scroll my mouse over it, select "open in new window", and then I can read only the last comment and then make one myself if I so choose. So for me, its still not working properly. Something is definitely wrong with haloscan. I had my registry checked yesterday by my computer technician, there appears to be nothing wrong with it, I have no viruses either and my firewall has nothing blocked for your website. I am sure others are still having some problems.

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By: dai

dai — Thu, 14 Feb 2008 10:23:00 +0000

Ben, many thanks for getting onto this problem. I have managed to get into HaloScan normally this morning, but I find that I am having problems with the letter "d" while writing posts.Interesting to learn from you that when we post a message here we are actually diverting to the HaloScan website/server.Anyway, I'll keep reporting any problems, if there are any, and it's good to know you're seeing to them.Pink News is exceptionally valuable to the gay community in the UK . . . and the world.

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By: Bill Perdue

Bill Perdue — Wed, 13 Feb 2008 21:49:00 +0000

Ben, I ustilize haloscan on two US blogs witout any difficulties. Perhaps Roberts report that "I just got off the phone with an internet expert who told me that yesterday, Microsoft Windows wrote some new codes for certain updates causing some blogsites and websites to malfunction in terms of commentaries, postings etc." should be looked into.

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By: ben cohen

ben cohen — Wed, 13 Feb 2008 20:08:00 +0000

Right, this is driving me mad! I'm getting intermitent access- we haven't changed anything in regards to our settings or code so I think it's a problem somewhere between us and Haloscan. I am really trying to identify what the problem is and fix it if I can and I'm sorry this has happened

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By: Kim

Kim — Wed, 13 Feb 2008 19:57:00 +0000

I'm running Firefox on Linux and it's working fine now, although I went for a few days where I had to copy and paste the link.Please don't bash the team who run this site, my local paper has a similar system and they regularly delete posts which either criticise them or disagree with their stance on any particular subject. They also delete any comments that criticise one of their major advertisers. Of course, most of their readers have no idea what's going on as they never see the missing comments.

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By: Robert, ex-pat Brit

Robert, ex-pat Brit — Wed, 13 Feb 2008 19:39:00 +0000

Ben, I still can't access comments either. I use Windows XP Professional as my operating system, McAfee firewall, IE version 7.0 and Firefox as an alternate browser, neither of which allow me to access comments in the customary manner since monday of this week.

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By: Roberto

Roberto — Wed, 13 Feb 2008 19:27:00 +0000

I'm afraid Ben that I still cannot open any of the comment boxes at all using Explorer? This is quite annoying but I hope the upgrade sorts out the problem soon.Roberto

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By: ben cohen

ben cohen — Wed, 13 Feb 2008 18:51:00 +0000

Hi, I'm the publisher. I've reinstalled haloscan and it works for me on Vista with firefox and Internet Explorer.I'm not too sure the cause of the problems but I agree that Haloscan is not ideal. We will be moving over to a new content management system and comments host hopefully by the end of next month. This will coincide with a long needed redesign.Ben

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By: Robert, ex-pat Brit

Robert, ex-pat Brit — Wed, 13 Feb 2008 18:28:00 +0000

Dai, you and I are having identical problems and I'm sure others are. Once nobody comments, then maybe the editor will realise something is really wrong and has not been fixed as previously stated.

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By: Robert, ex-pat Brit

Robert, ex-pat Brit — Wed, 13 Feb 2008 18:27:00 +0000

William, Dai, why do you think the editor is ignoring these problems? He or she claims they've fixed it, they sure haven't. This all started on monday of this week, prior to that it was fine.

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By: Robert, ex-pat Brit

Robert, ex-pat Brit — Wed, 13 Feb 2008 18:26:00 +0000

William, it only opens if I right click but not in New Tab, only in New Window, but its still not a convenient way to access comments. I don't know why the editor insists the problem has been fixed. It sure hasn't. I've tried both IE7 and Firefox, both yield the same result.

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By: William - Dublin

William - Dublin — Wed, 13 Feb 2008 18:05:00 +0000

Actually Dai, you're right. If you go to the comments by clicking that link, it doesn't work. I'm guessing its a javascript issue on this site. The way I was suggesting is to right click the comments box in the news screen, and select open in new tab, that seems to be the only way in, but its only good for seeing the threads of the last few comments made.

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By: Dai

Dai — Wed, 13 Feb 2008 17:55:00 +0000

William, I'm using Firefox, like Robert ExPat, and still can't access the Comments sections normally. Can you? (I mean, can you access each article's comment section via the "Readers' Comments" line on the right – not via the snapshot image of comments on the home-page?) I have just been to Onan's blog at:and the HaloScan comment system there is working normally, so the problem is definitely not my computer.By the way, Onan's blog is worth visiting now and again!I thought that maybe my Firefox add-on called Adblock might be to blame – if stops all ads from appearing. But then I remembered that Adblock was operating on my computer when I was able to post comments in the normal manner.

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By: William - Dublin

William - Dublin — Wed, 13 Feb 2008 17:39:00 +0000

Robert, if you're using Firefox (or IE 7), just right click any comment on the main window and select "open in new tab". That seems to work. It seems the problem is with opening a pop-up windows which is what normally happens when you click comments from a news story window.

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By: Robert, ex-pat Brit

Robert, ex-pat Brit — Wed, 13 Feb 2008 17:37:00 +0000

Dai, I think its a haloscan problem. It has a lousy reputation as an outsourcing agent for websites and blogsites, erratic and prone to technical glitches now and then. This will probably be my last comment since nobody is doing anything about it. I'm already sick and tired of going through the laborious task of cutting and pasting URLs from comments to eventually get access when I really shouldn't have to. You can bet if I were donating a million pounds to this website, they'd sit up and listen and do something about it. Like many Gay websites, they're indifferent to a lot of things when it doesn't suit them.

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By: Robert, ex-pat Brit

Robert, ex-pat Brit — Wed, 13 Feb 2008 13:40:00 +0000

Kim, I installed Firefox, the alternate browser to Explorer, even that is not allowing me to access comments in the normal manner.

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By: Robert, ex-pat Brit

Robert, ex-pat Brit — Wed, 13 Feb 2008 13:31:00 +0000

Dai, I agree with you on the census. Regarding the normal access to comments, I installed Firefox, an alternat to Explorer and for a while it worked fine accessing comments. But today, I tried clicking on readers' comments and now its not working. I'm sick of it.I suspect we're being blocked because of our opposing comments. If that's the case, I'm not coming here any more, not worth the trouble. UK Gay News is far better and always resolves technical problems and extends courtesy to its readers by posting messages to indicate that there may be problems accessing certain areas of the site.