daveverse

this diggin never stops

Wed, 28 Jan 2026 16:07:55 GMT

still working on the new feature, and i need another test post on the daveverse site.

i don't have all the pieces i need yet to be able to do this on the test post i created yesterday, so sorry -- i need another test post.

hopefully this will be the last such post.

as they say..

still diggin!

This is a workspace

Tue, 27 Jan 2026 18:26:39 GMT

I'm working on something new here, and need a post to work on.

You won't see this post on Scripting News, as until now all Daveverse posts came from the mother site.

Keep moving along, nothing to see here

Tue, 16 Dec 2025 18:33:12 GMT

This is another in a series of test posts. This one should not, in a perfect world, be on daveverse, and I hope it's one of the very last test posts on this site. But right now the feature I'm playing with is set up to work with this site. Eventually it will be generalized. Still diggin.

The next anchor post

Wed, 10 Dec 2025 16:26:48 GMT

I just spent my most productive hours of the day working on something I really thought would take about a half hour. But Ben's piece yesterday on why RSS matters really inspired me to take this stuff without so much fear.

Now I want to get back on track with the Discourse project for WordLand and FeedLand. It's the way the two things are joined to form a network. As usual, I made both pieces of software do a lot more than they have to do to serve this function, but did I know this function would exist when I wrote both of them? I did not. I had to have the pieces and then go for a few walks and long drives to figure it out. It was another benefit of driving from the southern Hudson Valley to Ottawa and back in the middle of October.

Anyway this will be another one of those bits that I attach posts to via "edges" -- a new database table that's part of wpIdentity. It basically takes one post and points it at another. Posts are identified by an idSite and idPost. These are very easy to understand concepts, imho. You have a site, and you have a post. Combined they form a unique post in the universe of posts defined by WordPress and JetPack. But I am very aware that we need to leave room for other formats that identifiy a post, so our network can have more other software filling the platform role.

Anyway that's what's on my mind right now, other than it's snowing again, with big fat flakes, and it's kind of nice as long as the internet stays up.

PS: I put this post on Daveverse. I don't want people working on it to think it's too precious. Scott if you got purple pound signs working, go ahead and deploy. I do crazy stuff like that on my deployed sites too. Whatever. Live on the edge.

Sun, 07 Dec 2025 18:27:28 GMT

You know those commercials for medicine where they talk about all the potential illnesses and side effects and death, stuff like that, wouldn’t it be funny if while they were doing that they showed people actually suffering from the illnesses they mention.

Wed, 03 Dec 2025 17:43:18 GMT

This is the second inbound post, or comment or reply or what have you.

I don't think I created the first one carefully enough. Or maybe something f-d up?

This one is for sure in the My comments site.

The first inbound link

Wed, 03 Dec 2025 16:43:44 GMT

This is a comment that is connected to the Daveverse post I just wrote.

I am fixing things up on the server so this works properly.

We're now saving the both author's usernames in the edge record.

A post that will receive a few inbound links

Wed, 03 Dec 2025 16:32:29 GMT

Inbound link is another term for Reply. But we're very much sticking with the web as the model. Links can go around and around, and of course can be circular. Behind this approach is a directed graph, with a source and destination. This goes in a table called Edges. It's all managed in SQL.

I am going to create the first post that has replies, and this is that post.

I created it the normal way you create a post, I chose New Post from the menu, and started filling it in.

I chose a site, I put it on daveverse because I want to do this part out in the open. Gave it a category of Testing, and set the title in a boring way, so as only to interest the nerdiest of the nerds, like you -- if you're reading this.

Then I will write a bunch of replies, in the site I use for replies, it's a preference setting so I don't have to remember to do it. Each reply will generate an email for notification, and give me a chance to read the reply and decide whether it should be published alongside the original, but that's a high bar for me, it has to be something an informed person would want to know. And it can't be personal, it has to be respectful to everyone, esp the reader, and extra esp to the author of the post that's being replied to.

But it's key that we're all writing on the same plane. There is no difference between a comment and a post. I like different contexts for reading, but only one place to write, and it should have exactly the same writing features and power as the thing you're replying to. I think communities will organize themselves differently with this way of doing it.

When it works maybe I'll post a screen shot here. ;-)

Test post verifies data received

Sun, 30 Nov 2025 17:56:34 GMT

Okay this is another test post on the daveverse site. Turns out it was a good thing to post the last one because it revealed a bug, apparently, in wordpress.com? No kidding. I understand how that goes, I'm now running a server that's much more complex than anything I've tried to manage before. It runs all the time, and does its thing, but there are definitely bugs in there.

Anyway, I'm working on discourse again, after blowing my head up a few times getting very mixed signals from the work with id's emanating from RSS feeds.

So this test will let us see, in the debugger, exactly what data is coming from WordLand about a post that is being replied to. It's supposed to get the URL of the post, and the id's of the site and post. From there we will be able to notify the author of the post being replied to that there is a reply, and where they can read it. That will be a URL and id's for the reply post. This email will let them read it, and decide what if anything to do. That's the next plateau I want to get to.

Result of test: this is what's available inReplyTo as part of the draft object wpIdentity gets.

Updates:

I'm testing this just by updating! Being very careful not to create too many test posts. This is already a somewhat real site.
The next day and I'm doing another update. I think I'm going to have to create a new post, running out of room on screen I think. This is something I have to fix in WordLand.,

The exceptional test post

Sat, 29 Nov 2025 20:32:27 GMT

I don't like to write test posts on daveverse.org but it's the only WordPress site I have that has the site and post id feature. I want to be sure FeedLand is processing this stuff correctly, so that requires a test post here. I will add more information so it's not entirely a test post.

The question I wanted to answer was this: If I post something new to daveverse, will it have the site id and post id in the item record for the post. Answer -- it did.

The next question is this: After I update the post will it retain the site and post id in the item record. Let's find out! The answer is yes. Whew. That says the code I had suspected of being wrong was probably right all along. It's just that I was testing with feeds that didn't have the elements that make this work.

So now the question is how to get along?

Is there another way to get the elements into the feed? (Probably, going to check with Scott.)
Can I get the site and post id's from the URL of the post? (Pretty sure I can do that, but it'll further complicate the software.)
Whatever gave daveverse the magic ability to have these elements in its feed could be applied to one of my other test sites?

Update: A comment from Jeremy Herve says this is a bug and will be fixed. Well I did not foresee that possibility, but that's the easiest option for me. Happy.

Demo post for source:markdown docs

Tue, 11 Nov 2025 14:41:22 GMT

This is a test post for the new docs I'm writing about source:markdown.

It includes instructions showing how to test it by creating a WordLand post.

I'm making use of markdown in this test, of course, because that's what this is about.

First thoughts on Pluribus

Sun, 09 Nov 2025 13:02:42 GMT

Of course I'm watching Pluribus. I could never not watch a Vince Gilligan show starring Rhea Seehorn. You can see little touches of Breaking Bad and Better Call Saul in the way it's put together, but it's really not the same thing. The main character played by Seehorn is dangerously emotional and not making many friends in the new order. It's science fiction, at least so far, and without spoiling anything, I'm not entirely sure I wouldn't go for the new program. I'm always saying the one thing we need to do better and more of is Working Together, and so far that seems to be the theme of the new order. It'll be interesting to see if this theory holds up through the first season. Also I wasn't aware that they screened the second episode too, so that was a nice little surprise, a whole other episode I didn't know was there. Not sure that scifi is really Gilligan's thing. It's getting great ratings but so far I don't think it's as great as his previous two hits. But still, a must-see imho.

I’ll wait till all the episodes are out

Sat, 08 Nov 2025 09:56:30 GMT

I don’t like it when reviewers get seven episodes of a new series and the regular folk, like me, are stuck with the first episode only. I won’t read their reviews because they’re writing about something that I don’t know anything about and they try to avoid the spoilers and all I can think about is why can’t I see all of the episodes at once.

That’s the effect of Pluribus, which is a highly anticipated show by Vince Gilligan the show runner of better call Saul and breaking bad. I know that if I go to Pirates Bay, I can probably get all of the seven episodes but I think what I’ll do instead it’s just wait for the series to end and then binge watch the whole thing in one shot or it as many shots as I feel, I want to any point in time

These shows that portion out the episodes in very small bits or throwbacks to the way TV used to work and it’s too controlling. I like the ability to program my entertainment rather than have a program for me. That’s all I can think about when I read their reviews and I think about what comes next. Well, I would like to know and I don’t wanna wait until next Friday.

Another show that got this treatment is Ken Burns upcoming story of the American Revolution. He did a huge press tour and they had all seen the entire series and that’s what they were talking about. It’s so obscene, the first moment I heard that the first reviewer doing the interview had watched the whole damn series I turned it off and I realized I don’t like any of these people. I don’t like the reviewers. I don’t like the people to do the shows. I don’t like the fact that they think there’s a line and they belong on one side and I belong on the other side

Gmail AI gets even more intrusive

Fri, 07 Nov 2025 17:02:06 GMT

Gmail doesn't just offer to write your emails for you, they actually do it, and it's up to you to delete the text it wrote.

Hard to make a screen shot to demo without revealing personal info. That's how awful this thing is.

It reeks of desperation.

Mullenweg and Borthwick

Wed, 05 Nov 2025 23:05:36 GMT

I drove down to NYC to see a fireside chat with Matt Mullenweg and John Borthwick of Betaworks. I know both these guys, did a project with Borthwick that became Bit.ly, had higher hopes for it, but it didn't happen . Had a chance to get my picture taken with Matt and it was good to get a short chat in there. And I've known Matt since he was a 17-year-old boy wonder of Silicon Valley. He and I mostly see eye to eye on what the web is. And now that they're starting we'll find out for sure what their idea of the web in 2025 is.

From the intro it sounds like the focus will be on AI.

Ben Werdmuller is sitting next to me.

The audio is terrible. We can make out what Matt is saying, but Borthwick is hard to figure out what he's saying.

Acoustics of this room not great, and there are a lot of people who are having a cocktail party because the room is so big. There might be some useful tech, like having it live streamed so people can listen on headphones.

ChatGPT is simulated intelligence. It's designed to fooling you into thinking it's thinking but it's not. When you really try to solve problems with your intelligence that's when you learn it's not even close to thinking.

Matt's on a 41 day blogging streak. I don't even know how long its been since I didn't post anything on my blog. Honestly I'm not sure my nightly email app would handle no posts on my blog. That probably means I haven't missed a day since May 2017.

AI changed the basic capabilities of computers. Some technologies will do fine in the new world, like SQL databases. But the stuff we do -- that's going to change radically. Will anything be left? No one knows, imho. Best thing we can do is keep going on the path we were on, and look for ways to involve AI tech in a way that will bring the power of AI to writers.

News sockets to WordPress plug-in possible

Wed, 05 Nov 2025 13:17:55 GMT

To people who do WordPress plug-ins -- have a look at the feedlandSocket repo. It sends notifications of news items to any subscriber, via websockets.

News items are simple JSON, and contain information in the feed item, and system info like id and when it was received.

This makes it easy to stream news to a plug-in running in a WordPress site, that can then do anything with the news they like. It's incredibly simple to use, and we provide all the JavaScript code you need to embed in a browser-based app.

Here's a place where you can ask questions.

Groceries expensive, voting free

Tue, 04 Nov 2025 18:46:50 GMT

I went grocery shopping and it looks like the prices have gone up a lot just in the last week. A cart of groceries that is usually about $70 is now $100. I also voted, the price has stayed the same, $0, and you get a nice sticker, and can chat with the lady poll keepers.

Don't you worry bout a ting

Mon, 03 Nov 2025 19:54:11 GMT

I just added a feature that gives you a constant readout of what's in the current "draft" record.

We have a way to view it in WordLand, but this is different, it's always visible.

Turns out this is a great aid in seeing how the software functions as you do things. Wish I had had this when I was initially debugging the WordLand editor.

I need a way to set the title. Right now there is no UI for that.

The plan here is to make a bare-bones editor, just to show how to hook up any editor to wpIdentity.

In the spirit of Marv Throneberry

Mon, 03 Nov 2025 17:32:21 GMT

I never got the heartbreak part of baseball, probably because my team began as a joke, which I think is a healthy way to feel about a baseball team. That was in 1962, when players made a few thousand dollars a year to play a game we’d all be happy to play for free.

When the Mets made the World Series in 2015 I was thrilled. I knew we wouldn’t win from the first pitch of game 1 of the World Series with the Kansas City Royals. An inside-the-park home run, the rarest thing in sport. What that said was this run is over. Enjoy the mystery. Yours truly, God.

The Royals. What a stupid name for a baseball team. Named that way so that no one who is beaten by them fails to see the humor in the hand of god who deigned this f’d up farce of a fiasco.

Demo app coming for wpIdentity

Mon, 03 Nov 2025 16:04:41 GMT

This last week I've been working on a bare-bones demo app for developers that shows them how to adapt any editor to work alongside WordLand. My hope this is the last time this level of glue is built. It's boring stuff, what you build on top is what's exciting, and what's even more interesting is the interop we will build! The fact that all our editors will work on the exact same data for the users. This is something we've never been able to do on the web, amazingly.

I'm 99% sure that wpIdentity can run on the VIP network, so it can scale. We can be in business with this quickly.

I'm writing this post in that bare-bones editor. Let's see if it works. 🙃

What I did on my trip to Canada, part 1

Sun, 19 Oct 2025 13:36:14 GMT

I presented WordLand for the first time publicly, the new one with a timeline, so it more clearly shows how we can build a beautiful social network just from open formats and protocols.

No user lock-in, every part replaceable, and open to developers to add functionality without having to reimplement the whole thing. These are all the things I think that have stood in the way of innovation in the web for many years.

A social network that starts out with no centralization and is open in every sense has a much better chance of being decentralized than one that starts out centralized and swears they're going to stop doing that -- someday, fingers crossed, etc.

Sun, 02 Nov 2025 14:05:13 GMT

I wanted to show Jake Savin, an old school UserLand dev, how I edit my JavaScript code projects in "Frontier". This is the source.opml file for the feedlanddatabase package, viewed in my outliner, Drummer.

Markdown support coming in NetNewsWire

Thu, 30 Oct 2025 17:31:47 GMT

I just got word from Brent that the next release of NetNewsWire will have support for the source:markdown element.

This will help the transition to using Markdown as a fully-supported format for RSS.

NNW is the first mainstream product to support it, as far as I know.

This site has an RSS feed that contains source:markdown elements.

Every WordLand-written WordPress post has one of these feeds, so there is an official way to publish content that NNW will display via Markdown. Just sign on to WordLand and start writing. There is a link to the special RSS feed in the popup menu in the editor.

I started a thread on GitHub to answer questions, etc.

WordPress and AI

Sat, 25 Oct 2025 15:05:02 GMT

I see that the WordPress world is getting interested in adding AI features.

I had some ideas a few years ago, about how I would like AI to be hooked up to blogging, and the ideas have developed a bit in the years since.

As a writer I want most is every bit of writing I’ve published turned into any kind of book I want at any time.

I think it’s a great time to invest in new ideas for writers.

I have pretty good search on my blog, but so much more is possible.

An example of a book lurking in the archive of my blog.

A user’s guide to FeedLand.

Knowing the AI would pull a users manual together on command, I’d feel more comfortable writing about it on my blog. As it is there’s a lot of good info between other blog posts.

Imagine a series of book types you could ask your AI friend to build for you from your own writing.

Eventually all user's guides will be assembled by AI. In the case of software products it should have already happened, though I'm just as behind the curve as everyone else is in this regard.

And of course the first docs to be produced that way would be A user's guide to WordPress.

wpIdentity work to warm up

Wed, 22 Oct 2025 14:53:02 GMT

As a warmup project, I've updated the home page of the wpidentity package, so that it's clear that it's much more than identity.

Did the final editing on the api2.js file -- so that all the code is separated from the assignment to the wordpress object.

Next up I want to generate a set of docs for the function. I've tried it with ChatGPT before and it seemed to do a pretty good job, this time I'll look more closely.

I want to see if I can quickly write a "hello world" scale editor.