Userscripts.org

Last year, MySpace, in their ever infinite wisdom, elected to replace the date & time input fields in the blog editor (both advanced & basic) with drop down boxes instead, limiting the selectable year options to 2006 and later. Apparently, whoever implemented this change didn't give much thought to the fact that users may actually have a need or desire to pre-date blog entries or retain the original posting dates when editing them, as is standard with most blogging/journal sites. The biggest problem here is that, due to the limited year choices, editing any blog entry written *before* 2006 will result in it essentially becoming a "new" blog from 2007, taking it out of the original, logical, and dated order it was initially in and instead placing it in the most recent blog entry position. It also means that all existing blog comments for the entry, which do in fact keep their original posted dates, will appear to have been written long before the blog itself ever was, which makes no sense whatsoever (i.e. edit an entry from 2003 and it becomes a 2007 entry with comments from 2003). This is a major annoyance if you have a large number of entries from 2005 and earlier and just want to, as an example, update some of the links in them. Aside from making a total, non-chronological mess of your blog, it also means that every time you edit an older entry, it shows up as a new entry in other people's MySpace blog control centres and, I assume, RSS readers as well.

Checking the source of the MySpace blog editor reveals that the option values for the drop down, postYear field are limited to 2006 and above:


<select>
<option>2006</option>
<option>2007</option>
<option>2008</option>
<option>2009</option>
<option>2010</option>
</select>

I'm wondering if, and how, it would be possible to use a script, or any other workaround for that matter, to widen these ranges to include 2005 and earlier. Any assistance or advice on conquering this would be greatly appreciated.

I did discover one workaround to pre-dating new blog entries, and that was to use a combination of the Performancing/Firescribe blog editor extension for Firefox and its MySpace plugin. This allows for dates as early as 2003 for new blogs (which shows there is no technical or back end reason for not allowing such), but, unfortunately, the plugin does not have the ability to retrieve and/or edit existing entries.

(Side note: I typically would crosspost this to the GM Userscripts group on MySpace, but am currently unable to do so as I am having problems connecting to the site at the moment.)

This should be somewhat easy, actually. I'll see if I can work out something for you.

OK, here it is: [link]

Make sure to report that (not being able to edit old posts without them being re-dated) as a bug to MySpace.

I don't think MySpace listens to bug reports. I usually just get automated responses telling me I'm stupid and shows me how to post a blog.

Ah. Sounds corporate. eBay is much the same :/

Thank you for the incredibly prompt response and work. After a year of not doing so because of this bug, I can actually begin using the MySpace blog system once again. I've tested the script out with positive results and figured I would pass along some notes for anyone who might be interested.

With this script enabled...

1. Edited entries do not get re-ordered within the blog itself. For example, let's say you have a total of 4 blog entries, ranging in dates from 2003 to 2006. They would appear in your blog (your full blog, what people see when they "View all" your entries) in the following order:

4 - Newest entry (2006)
3
2
1 - Oldest entry (2003)

If you edit the oldest entry from 2003 and change the date to 2007, it will still appear in its original, #1 spot within the blog itself. It does not get bumped to the top of the list. It is also worth mentioning that the only thing that appears to mandate the order of entries is the actual posting date itself. Not the date at which you set the entry to, but the actual day you post it on. If, on Monday, you post an entry and postdate it to 2010, and then, on Tuesday, post another entry and pre-date it to 2004, Tueday's 2004 entry will still appear ahead, or on top, of Monday's 2010 entry.

However...

2. Edited entries DO get re-ordered within the list of recent blog entries that appears on your profile. Using the same example as above, if we change the date on our oldest entry to 2010, the list of blog entries on our profile will now appear as:

1 - Oldest entry (Originally posted in 2003 / Date changed to 2010)
4 - Newest entry (2006)
3
2

In my worthless opinion, this is a good thing as it allows you to always keep a particular blog entry (a FAQ or a "Please read before you add me" diatribe, for example) at the top of the list if you so desire, similar to stickying a thread within a forum.

3. If you edit an older entry and change the date to a newer one, it will show up with the new date in the "Latest Updates" section of other people's blog control centres, though it won't be flagged as "new". So, if you were to change the date on a 2003 entry to 2010, it would likely appear at the top of other user's latest updates list. Similarly, if you give a newer entry an older date, it will drop down, or off of, that list.

Adrian, correct me if I am wrong, but, after looking at the script source, I realised that it should probably also include the following line:


// @include hxxp://blog.myspace.com/*blog.create*


This would allow the script to work when creating new blogs as well (blog.edit is only used when editing existing entries). (Changed http to hxxp because I couldn't figure out how to stop the forum from auto-linking, even when using code tags)

MySpace not listening to bug reports could be considered a bit of an understatement. I've been on the site since right around day one, and used to easily be able to just mail one of a few different people, including Tom, to report bugs and, typically, get them fixed fairly quickly. Obviously, the major growth and popularity have brought a few problems along with them, and, nowadays, it's just a mess. If you send a message to customer service, you will likely get a canned response that has nothing to do with your original bug report. The few times I got an actual human to reply, which only happened when I stuck the bug report in with other, non-related correspondence, I was told the "official" channel for reporting bugs was to mail Tom. In fact, if you attempt to send him a message, it clearly says one of the only reasons you should be doing so is to report bugs. That's great and all, except for the fact that, ever since about 2005, when you attempt to do so, you are greeted with the following:

You can't send a message to Tom because Tom's status is set to away.

So, technically, the "official" channel for reporting bugs is closed. As I did with this one, I've also attempted to report bugs in the MySpace forum with the hopes that one of the moderators would at least attempt to forward the information to the appropriate people. Instead, my posts, and subsequent re-posts, just get immediately deleted with no indication as to why. I was later told that this was because of the newer, corporate policy of not allowing MySpace "bashing" or "exploit" posts in the forums. I'm not sure why not being able to maintain the original posting date on edited blog entries would ever be considered a security hole or exploit, but that's their mentality for you. When I did try to report actual security issues, I ran into all of the same headaches (at least until I got smart enough to include the word bugtraq in an e-mail to them). The motto seems to be "it's not really a problem until it's really a problem".

I should also mention that, in case anyone actually doesn't realise, notes 1-3 above are not things that can be changed via a script.

OK, I've added the @include for new blogs as well. I originally didn't expect people to have a need for backdating new blogs, but I guess if it works, use it.

I've all but given up on trying to report bugs to MySpace. My view is, if a website puts in that much effort to prevent themselves from knowing about bugs, then they don't really care about their website (or their users for that matter). So that's why I'm a Greasemonkey scripter... It's easier to fix bugs from the outside. And I probably wouldn't even bother with MySpace if it weren't for all my friends being in one place, as there are much better blog sites out there...