Frank Kogan

"Text align right" seems to be built into your source coding -- maybe the style-sheet you used? If you can get into the code to edit it, maybe just change "right" to "left" at those points?

You can probably remove the block quote mechanism altogether, by editing the html -- though it may screw stuff up when others reblog you...

From:

koganbot

The only time text aligns right is when the original post was in "quote" mode; in effect we're doing all the commenting in the source box, and that box automatically aligns right on my set-up.

Another problem with quote mode is that there's no title box. I've always aspired to write great headlines (Headless Woman In Topless Bar, Wall Street Lays An Egg, and the like), and this prevents me from doing so on these posts.

So I will never use "quote" mode myself, but that doesn't help me when I reblog someone else's post that was in quote mode (unless I do the whole thing as a new post, in which case I'm no longer part of the "notes" stream, and might as well just post it on my lj).

From:

in the template i use, you can go into the html section and strip out (by hand) the styling for the repeat block quotes as they pop in before your reply to the quote: it's not very handy -- this is an ugly bug in the tumblr set-up really -- but it does allow me to tidy up my own response on my own tumblr page: and seems to give me some control over the dashboard that everyone sees... not sure tho what happens when it's reblogged (as no one has yet reblogged me when this was an issue)

the quotes and your responses are not right-aligning on the general dashboard (at least as i have this set up)

(in fact the right-align thing seems to be a feature of the template you're using: it's embedded in the structural part of the source code, the style sheet which sets the general rules) (is this the CSS section? i kinda know how to fuck about with these things without knowing how to name them correctly...)

From:

koganbot

Yeah, they don't right-align on my dashboard either, just at my actual Tumblr site. But also, I don't think it would be "block" quotes that causes a right align, would it? Doesn't "block" tend to justify text?

But as I was saying, this only happens in the "Source" box. Have you ever reblogged something that was in "quote" mode? I have a feeling other people's templates may allow more choices, but in this instance I can't write new text anywhere but in the "quote" box (in which case it appears to be part of the original quote) or in the "source" box.

I have no idea what CSS is other than it has something to do with webpages and it isn't html.

I actually don't give much of a shit about this issue (I care more that supposedly Easy To Use tumblr doesn't always let you reblog an entire post, so if you want to you have to cut and paste and start dicking around with html, which is really a stupid way for tumblr to do things if their drawing point is how easy it is for the average casual cat to reblog).

From:

well, i only looked at the source for that one post, and it seemed to me that the block instruction is taken to apply to any commentary you wish to add to it -- which is why it's indented the same and bolded the same (and in your template's case aligned right the same) -- so it's the "block quote" instruction's fault in the sense that the block quote style doesn't get turned off

the aligned right bit is weird, and i suspect actually an error in that template: someone coded right instead of left and not enough people have pointed it out to whoever would or could change it for this to happen (they just quietly switch templates)

i agree about the headlines and the style limitations once someone uses quote: they seem unuseful -- i did reblog a quote once, and it made my comment look like part of the quote, so i went into html and snipped out the bit was making this happen (or closed a tag or something); not very time-consuming in itself but i can't see why anyone would want it the way it is

and no one reblogged so i don't know what happens afterwards -- if this affects tumblr's own internal machinery (which seems buggy in lots of mildly irritating ways) or not

kat probably knows how to solve this!

(css is Cascading Style Sheets, and it's a type of coding you put at the top of a document to allow all kinds of different formats and structures to nest into each other, instead of recoding every detail anew every time, like font or indent or italics or whatever) (so that you set the "block quote" instructions up once, at the top, and then just say "here be block quote" and "here end block quote" -- or actual correct equivalent -- when you get to it: but i think the coding for tumblr is something else)

From:

(and apologies for responding only to the least interesting and basically irrelevant bit of the post!)

From:

No, I think it's the "div.post div.quote div.source" bit in the section labeled "Quote Post;" the coding in that section also sets the font and size of both the quoted text and the source/commentary beneath it. It looks like the "block quote" instruction applies to block quotes in regular text posts, so any time Frank quotes someone mid-post it should align right as well. (Except, looking back through his posts, it doesn't! Probably bad coding on the part of the template-maker -- there's probably another instruction somewhere else mistakenly overriding the block quote instruction for text posts.)

From:

koganbot

It is all fixed now, owing to Dave giving me a new template. And now I am represented by a picture that is 25 years old!

From:

Well, Tumblr is mostly an archive of stuff posted here, so I felt it appropriate to use an archival picture. (Really it's just an elaborate plug for your book.)

From:

koganbot

Oh, I don't mind at all, and the book could use more plugs.

From:

That's okay, on my Twitter I'm represented by a picture that is 23 years old.

Nice work, Dave.

From:

My Tumblr picture might be 25 years old.

From:

koganbot

But anyway, maybe later today I will quote Abraham Lincoln to the effect that you can fool all the people some of the time, you can fool some of the people all of the time, but you can't get Tumblr to fucking format the way you want to. And then in the "Source" box I'll print the Gettysburg Address and see if I can go into the code and change "right" to "left" everywhere it says "align: right."

Or maybe I won't.

From:

Or just change your template.

(Who doesn't think all music is valid!?)

From:

Was hoping to see an extensive convo about this line, but instead I see you're all a bunch of CODE GEEKS.

Alignment problem should be fixed now.

From:

koganbot

I have a feeling the line won't be very controversial among my lj friends, but it does make its point clearly and forcefully, more so than I've seen the point made. Deserves to become a meme.

From:

My favorite bit of that is the related point that KNOWLEDGE TAKES EFFORT. The idea that good music criticism takes work, and that some people demonstrably do more work (physically and/or intellectually) than others (and tend to, though don't always, do better music criticism than those who don't), moves us away from itself strawmannish "fairness" and toward something probably more productive. I can see how the idea, used poorly, could justify an attitude that says that (say) knowing more bands = "know more about music," but as long as we identify what rigorous intellectual practices look like, it's a useful thing to think about when judging what building knowledge really looks like.

I'd like to know where in music criticism you see something like Paul Krugman's anti-(inverse?) strawman (I like calling 'em "realboys"), crediting knowledge-effort where it isn't due.

From:

And I say that ("looking for realboys") because one thing a realboy does is force us to say, well, OK, these people are being credited with reasonable ideas they don't hold -- but what happens when you actually adhere to those (perhaps good) ideas? The conservative who actually held the positions claimed of them would probably be good and interesting thinkers. They probably wouldn't be called "conservatives," but what they're called isn't really the issue.

From:

koganbot

I said "effort" rather than "work," because it's fun* for me (though would be work for many others), is like completing crossword puzzles is for puzzle fanciers and mastering a videogame is for someone into videogames.

*The word "fun" may miss some of the nuances: sometimes the endeavor is compulsive, often it doesn't bring fast gratification, sometimes it's like crossing the desert. In any event, the nature of the fun/effort/work is testing ideas, other people's and one's own, and that's the effort that musicwrite people generally don't know how to make. More crucially, it's an effort that the musicwrite community doesn't know how to make.

From: