Some Small Changes and the Dish About ‘Gravatars’
Yesterday, I made some slight changes to GodlySheep. Some things you will notice right away, and others you wouldn’t have known outside this post. The continually impressive Standard Theme for WordPress had an update yesterday. Included were some slight tweaks (for me) and some sweet features on the user end (for you!). One of the new features prompted me to drop the old third-party commenting system of Intense Debate, and bring to you the new commenting system that you see right now. Well “new” as in different. If you were here at the start of GodlySheep, we’re going back to what we had before. 
Some of you may have questions about what all this means. I’ll try to answer some hypothetical that you may have.
“What does that mean to me?”
Well, hopefully it gives you a quicker site load time; a better way to follow replies and other comments; after your first comment, you won’t need to wait for me to approve it; and a cleaner, more unified approach at commenting.
“Why don’t I have a picture next to my name?’
When you enter your email address in the comment box, the site will pull your picture or “Gravatar” associated with that email address. If you don’t have a Gravatar, you won’t have a picture.
“What is a Gravatar? Does it have anything to do with James Cameron?”
A Gravatar is “Globally Recognized Avatar”. It is an image that follows you from site to site appearing beside your name when you do things like comment or post on a blog. You can use a picture of yourself, or your favorite sports team, or whatever you want. And a “I don’t think so” to the James Cameron part.
“How do I get/change my Gravatar?”
It’s very easy. Go to Gravatar.com, sign up with the email that you plan to use, activate your account, and then upload your photo. You can always go back and change it, and also add as many emails under your account that you want to manage.
If you already have a Gravatar and want to change it, again go to Gravatar.com, log in with your email and password, under “My Account”, and “Manage My Gravatars”. You can then modify your existing Gravatar or add a new email address under your account.
“Why the change in commenting system? Why fix what wasn’t broken?”
I did have a few issues along the way with Intense Debate, but the problems alone were not reason enough for me to make the switch. I didn’t drop Intense Debate for some anti-third party commenting system soap box agenda either. I enjoyed Intense Debate. It didn’t “eat my comments” and it didn’t bring the site to its knees under its control. The change was for site load speed, the trimming down behind the scenes of plug-ins, a more unified look in design, and the sweet automatic Gravatar populate that came in the Standard Theme update.
I really hope you enjoy the old new way of commenting. If you don’t have a Gravatar, it takes about 5 minutes to set up, and you won’t have to touch it for as long as you want to keep the picture.
If you’re looking for something to say to kick the tires on the new way of commenting, what would be a good caption for this picture?
via FFFFOUND!
Share and Enjoy:
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I don’t have a caption, but that picture is hilarious.
(also, it’s gravatar.com. Now I don’t feel so bad about “yankey” instead of “yankee.” hehe)
*facepalm So that’s the last time I make fun of other peoples’ spelling! I think I fixed them all. Thanks!
Caption: “What are You Lookin’ At?… Cat got your tongue?”
Love the new updates, Brett. The site ROCKS.
Thanks, Bonnie! The Standard Theme does make it easy to do though.
Works for me!
“What are you?”
“I’m Batcat” (a rodent and a cat, talk about conflicted)
Haha! I see everything going down exactly like THIS
“I keel you!” lol great pic!
haha! The more I look at it, the more it DOES look like Achmed
My only beef is the comment system.
“I didn’t drop Intense Debate for some anti-third party commenting system soap box agenda either.” If this is a slam against me, I will destroy you.
How did I get the reputation of being anti-third party system? I just have an opinion. People dislike it I guess.
Seems defensive.
I thought you were supposed to be a taking a sabbatical from the tubes today?
I thought I was as well.
Just chalk it up to another failure
Not a slam. More like distancing myself from you.
I can see your points. To me, the less plug-ins, the better. Plus I think the new comment box ties together the site nicely, too.
People like distancing themselves from me
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Kidding!
Caption: “Anyone seen Catwoman?”
Puahah!
“Trick or Treat”…. get it?? Because he’s wearing a mask
I still like your first reaction to the pic, “What is that? Darth Vader Cat?”
“Something about this mask makes my purr all hoarse and gravelly.”
Yeaaaa! My blackberry didn’t like ID-and since this is the way I see the net…it made it unbearable for me! Love the batcat! Its hard to type in a gravelly meow!