Blueshirt Banter Update 4/4/23

Shockingly the update stories I have planned out are not going to work on the weekly timeline I originally expected, which I actually think is for the better since it will allow me to give real-time updates as they go.

As always, allow me to thank all of you who have joined us so far on this journey. This is very scary in a lot of ways, but we're moving in the right direction and it's all thanks to you!

Also – I e-mailed out this story because it's an update that impacts all of you who are here directly. Ghost allows us to e-mail all stories, but unless I hear from the majority of you that that's what you want, I think it's easier if all stories moving forward are just published and not e-mailed. If I have that wrong and you guys don't think it's clutter to get the e-mails, let me know in the comments. Otherwise we'll move forward with most stories being publish only.

Anyway, let's just jump right in!  

1) This question has come up a few times (thank you!) so I want to address it here. If you have subscribed to the Commenting Tier of Blueshirt Banter, and you have realized that you actually want the Full Access Tier, you do not have to double pay. From Ghost directly:

If a member changes their paid tier, or billing frequency, they'd only be paying a pro-rated amount -- e.g. they'd receive a credit for the unused time on their previous tier, as well as a partial charge for the new tier (less the credit).

So upgrade away my dear folks!

2) Speaking of comments: Originally when we were using Ghost's commenting platform you were able to see comments if you were not a paid subscriber. It appears that once we partnered with and plugged in Hyvor Talk's code (which allows the comments to be dynamic the way they were with Legacy Blueshirt Banter) it wipes that feature and only allows people who are paid subscribers to see comments. That was an unintended consequence for the greater good (I would actually greatly prefer everyone see all comments regardless of tier) so I have reached out to Hyvor to see if there is anything that can be added to the code to allow everyone to see comments. I will let you all know when I hear back.

3) I'm going to bold this since people have also asked about this and I think it's part of what makes me so happy we're doing this with this community. At the top of the page, we've added a digital tip jar. You can access it by clicking this link (graphic design is my passion):

This link allows anyone to leave a custom tip (of any amount) at any time to directly support our writers. We are so appreciative of the support we have received already, but wanted to add this (totally voluntary obviously) option for those of you who either want to support us further than the tiers, or want to show love when this site moves you. This link is accessible on both the main page and any secondary pages you're on (including story links obviously).

4) The archives are officially uploaded into this platform, so the entirety of work published on legacy Blueshirt Banter is now here. This is amazing work done by the Ghost team, and they were so quick and seamless it almost felt like it wasn't a big deal – even though I know it was.

That said, there are a few things to note about this change:

• The way that legacy SB Nation sorted and tagged stories obviously doesn't mesh with a completely different hosting platform in a flushed way. Anything that was tagged in a way that matches what we're now doing on Ghost auto-fills in areas the site thinks it belongs. That's going to create some strange pockets like a story Bryan wrote back in 2019 showing up on the front page right now in the "more" section of Bantering Points. Those little situations will be pushed down in a week or so as more stories go live but wanted to make you aware of it. (For those of you who want way too much information: when Chorus went live on SBN you no longer tagged like you used to in the old editing system. That's why you're seeing a three-to-four year gap in this instance of old tags for stories that we're now bringing back.)
• This also means that all stories on the site and all back-links are operational, which is huge. Keeping the history of this website together was super important to me once we were able to keep the IP.

OK I think I've talked enough. As more of you reach out to me about things – and keep doing so, it helps me focus on what you guys want – I will address as needed.

Thank you!