I'm sorry, Tom, but this is ridiculous.

Once the recommended system is up and working again you all will have an opportunity to consistently promote threads and writers that you can follow every day. You'll be able to reward good writers with audience and a better conversation which will improve the community here by keeping thoughtful folks around.

To make our attempt to give readers more of a say about what does and doesn't get read here, and more of an ability to have real conversations on sites other than Cafe, into some sort of callous financial calculation is really pretty offensive.

If you don't like the new design, that's completely within your rights (it's not fully working so I'd ask folks to reserve judgment, but that's up to you). But there's a difference between disagreeing with our conception of how to make a better community for all of you and slandering us as greedy ad whores. I'd think after all this time you'd think better of us than that.

Tom, I'm not going to be offended or not offended. But as the person who pays the bills and signs off on all the decisions at TPMCafe, your point might work well as the basis for an undergraduate cultural studies essay. But as a representation of what thinking went into the redesign of TPMCafe, it falls wildly off the mark. TPM is supported by advertising -- has been ever since I started expanding it from a one person blog. Nothing's changed about that. If you're under the impression that TPMCafe is or ever will be some sort of cash cow, you are sadly mistaken. It has always been something that's subsidized by the main site. Which is fine, I always intended it that way.

The prime reason behind the redesign of TPMCafe is twofold. First, it ran on a different software platform than the rest of our sites. That meant constant headaches for us in trying to keep it running and making it fit together with our other sites. Second, very few people could figure out how it worked. There some great things about it. And there was a core audience that had figured it out. But overwhelmingly our audience could not.

I personally wanted the opinion pieces that run at TPMCafe to be more on the front page of TPM, in our news section. And I also wanted to find ways for the material that readers posted in their blogs to be more prominent, for them to get on the front page of TPM as well as on the front page of our other sites.

We also thought it would expand the breadth of TPMCafe's discussions and community if cafe denizens could comment, using their same stable identities on TPM material from other sites too.

As Andrew notes, there are still a couple levels of functionality such as threaded comments that aren't working correctly. And a few of the kinds of functionality that were lost -- such as ability to track threads, we're going to try to work back in as funds make it possible.

But these are the actual reasons for the redesign of TPMCafe and its closer integration into the rest of the TPM network. It definitely changes things. And I accept and expect that some won't like the changes, though I'd ask that people be open-minded about the changes and how they shake out. The fact that all our sites require advertising to stay afloat is no more than to state the obvious. We don't charge for the site; we don't take foundation grants. So that's where the money comes from. And believe me, it takes a lot of money to run all these sites. But nothing has changed in what we're doing or how we're doing it. And the dime store publishing history hokum you're trying to fit us into is just silly.

Well, my plea is for patience, I dunno, maybe even a bit of compassion, bigger-picture gratitude, and loyalty. Our side needs to do a better job, I feel, of helping support and sustain people who are making valuable reporting, analysis, advocacy, and other contributions as Josh does.

Movement conservatives, who admittedly have a huge advantage because of their far greater access to the money of rich individuals and corporations, made a conscious decision to support people committed to their movement, who they felt made valuable contributions, with options for them to make a living over the longer haul. They have benefited with strong, durable institutional support that has enabled them to have much success and staying power marketing their brand, whose contents are not especially popular when you strip away the packaging.

I don't begrudge Josh or Andy or any of the other staff a living. To the contrary. I am grateful for all the extra stuff Josh has taken on when he never needed to do that. It comes with a lot of risk and aggravation. Being on the side they are on they typically have to be creative and scrappy figuring out how to do as much good as they can and survive at the same time.

Not casting aspersions on denizens or management. There is lots of competition for our time and attention. If folks like Tom or nascardaughter, among some of the others who are making rumblings, leave, they're big people and know what they want. I'll miss their contributions if that does happen.

I'm not leaving this place any time soon.

Today appears to be the first day that I'm actually able to blog and comment. Perhaps it is a Blog Zen koan that given the use of avatars, I want to delete my image from my bio, but there is no file shown.

One ulterior motive: I've been considering using Movable Type for some of my own sites, and can't say that I'm impressed so far, for the kind of content that I want: mostly technical things. That isn't a reflection on TPMcafe as much as on the software, and perhaps the software release team. Obviously, I'm used to mission-critical software, but the two major changes in software base that I've undergone here have been very painful.

Incidentally, clearing cookies, unless one has third-party software that lets one control single cookies, is just not a viable software fix. Things change, I suppose; no one is asking me to reinstall my operating system. I miss some obedient dinosaurs like OS/MVT/HASP/TSO, when I was in real control.

I don't mind the new bloggers too much. Some of them are quite good. The problems are 1) there are so many of them 2)posting about the same subjects 3) at close to the same time and their posts are 4) way too long.

Too bad the software doesn't limit front page displays to short opening paragraphs. It might help aspiring writers develop more concise theses.

I'm pleased to have Josh and Andrew explain in more detail the reasons for the changeover. I am not unhappy you are making a living. But absent the inside story, I saw only a trend I didn't like. Am I in the minority?

You know how much I admire this site, I hope, since I have always thanked everyone that offered personal attention to fix the problems associated with other changeovers. I've always recommended it to others, and am glad to see your site growing in visibility.

As to the Cafe being different than the other pages, fixing that serves your convenience more than ours. Of course you owe us nothing, having provided a venue for us to use at will. But it just doesn't look like it will recover the other feeling.

First the Discussion Tables died, then we lost tracking, (and rating). I especially miss seeing three or four main-page items at the Cafe in one screen. The column list ain't the same.

What this really means is that I had some great times here, and I'm growing old and curmudgeonly and get tired of the constant drift these days.

Don't dis undergrads, I'm a college dropout.

Numbers for the Numerate!

From 00:01a.m. 2/6/2008 -- 7:09p.m. 2/7/2008

Total number of reader blog entries = 76
Total number of comments = 213
Average comment per entry = 3*

I excluded five blog entries which dealt solely with discussions of the style of the new TPMCafe (2 by Tom Wright; 2 by cscs; and 1 by nascardaughter)

Well, I do hope the various changes to TPM since I first discovered it (via Al Franken) have ensured its future. We can always use the honest reporting. But every change has made the Cafe worse, from my view.

First, I appreciate the TPM sites very much. I find the sites to be the most reliable and even handed source of information relative to the election campaigns.

I also appreciate very much the prompt attention that Andrew has paid to reported problems.

I had been registered, under a different user name, with TPM Cafe for 2 and 1/2 years and found lots of useful information and fascinating discussions there.

I like the new format, though I agree that there must be a better means of indexing the reader posts.

I suspect that over time, the reader marketplace, utilizing, or not, the recommend function and by withholding comments, thus denying the attention often sought, will discourage the frothers, provocateurs, wordy, and those tending toward social networking.

I have already determined to not bother reading the contributions of a number of posters whose offerings are of no interest to me, and have noticed a couple of frothers have apparently already departed.

I'm going to hang around, and will try to exercise restraint in contributing to the problems.