Frequently Asked Questions

Yes. It can be found here.

Go to My account->Edit->Personal Information, and enter your URL in the Homepage text field. This URL will appear on all subsequent posts you make.

The login system works by sending you an email first. When you receive the email, it will contain a temporary password, which you can use to login with.

The email will also contain a long link which you can use as an alternative. If you click on it, you will be temporarily logged in. You should immediately change your password, as this one will not work indefinitely.

If you continue to have problems, use the feedback page to contact us, and we'll get you taken care of.

"Hoocoodanode?" was quintessential Tanta snark, a bemused response to the hand wringing that's followed the recent financial insanity.

It's also a commenting site for CalculatedRisk, named in her honor, and specifically tailored to the quirky CR culture that's evolved over the years.

As with Haloscan and JS-Kit, it stands separate from CalculatedRisk's blog, and is linked in both directions.

Hoocoodande is built and operated by volunteers from the CR community. The server and development infrastructure are funded by your donations.

Please, if you are able, contribute!

Click on the Donate to Hoocoodanode button to your left. It works through Paypal, and you can use major credit cards in various currencies. We also accept gold, silver, and platinum, shipped insured fedex.

We are now also experimenting with ads, to see if they can help cover the cost. Please, though, in the interest of avoiding click fraud, only click on an ad if you find it interesting.

Yes, by all means. If you want it fixed, though, we may not catch everything you say. Click on the Feedback link to submit a message that is sure to reach us, and we'll get to it as soon as we can.

No. After battling a swarm of spammers, we've decided to disable anonymous commenting.

Presently, registration offers the following benefits:

• Your user name is protected. No one else may post with the same name.
• A registered user can add a signature (including a home page), which will be automatically appended to your comments.
• Registered users have a profile, which will likely be expanded if there is interest.
• Other users can contact you via email without exposing your address.
• Times will appear in the time zone you select.
• You can see if any messages have been added since you last visited, and navigate to the first one (note though that this assumes you've read all the messages since you last refreshed).

There will likely be additional advantages for registered users in the future.

OpenID provides a way for you to control your identity across multiple sites. You can find out more about it here.

Like JS-Kit, Hoocoodanode supports threading, primarily to make it easier to see who is responding to whom. When you click on reply, your message is associated with the one you reply to.

When someone is viewing a response written in this way, a link to the original comment will appear at the top of the reply. This helps make it easier to understand people saying '+1!' or 'Word!' for no apparent reason.

If you wait for a second or two after typing, you'll see a preview appear below your text area.

Yes, until someone else responds to them. Until that time, an edit button will appear on your message, allowing you to fix any mistakes. But once someone replies, comments are read only. The general consensus in the community has been that people should stay true to what they've said.

We may also add a time limit at some point, as some people don't respond using the reply button, or even respond at all.

If you type in what looks like a url (i.e. begins with 'http://'), it will be converted automatically, and if possible, a title will be looked up for it. Non HTML types like jpg or .pdf don't have titles, and some sites make it relatively difficult to retrieve them.

Alternatively, you can use the anchor tag (<a>) to surround text if you want to create a link with a specific title.

Yes, though somewhat half heartedly. You can enter them in text form (help is provided on the compose page), and they will be recognized. The general feeling is that they are rather 1997, but if enough people clamor for them, a smiley palette will be provided.

Yes. The first order objective was to get a decent working site again, so CR Companion porting has been delayed. Rest assured, however, that it (or something very much like it) will appear soon.

It's now called "Who's online", and it's on the left side of this page.

It shows the number of registered users currently active (hit the site within the last fifteen minutes), as well as the number of guests. It also shows a list of the ten most recent users.

Yes! You can subscribe to all comments, or just the comments for a particular post. Just click on the RSS icon at the bottom of the main page, or on that of a particular post.

Hoocoodanode is built with Drupal 6, a handful of modules, and some custom code. Drupal has a huge learning curve, and is somewhat resource intensive, but it's a flexible system that should meet our needs for the future.

It's running on a dedicated linux (CentOS) server, currently hosted by HostGator, as kcoop is a sysadmin neophyte and needed some help to get us running quickly. So far they've been stellar. We are not on a contract, however, and as time and experience progresses, we may get performance improvements by switching to a leaner provider.

Yes. Don't tell anyone, but we are secretly funded by the NSA. All your base are belong to us.