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From: Cafe

Why Not a Subscription Cafe?

By Tom Wright - February 8, 2008, 11:36PM

Seems everything else is subscriber, why not here? I have to subscribe to cable TV to hear presidential debates. I'd rather pay to have the features we used to have here. There is no argument one can make to say the current setup is going to be superior, and of course it's a mess now.

That there were problems keeping the old system running in good communication with TPM is not the issue. It would have cost money to get some custom software written that would make that work, but it is far from an insoluble problem. It was whether it was worth it ($$) to keep the ragged kludge together.

It's worth it to me, and I'd pay at least $100/yr for the privilege. But there are some things money can't buy, and I guess the past is among those. Mainly, money won't buy what someone is not selling.

Going somewhere else is one answer, but what we had here was Josh's pull with good writers, them interacting with us, and TPM's profile pulling in new readers. That can't be duplicated.

Comments (13)

Count me in as another willing subscription payer.

And I'm trying to be patient and see where this new alignment leads us, but the two aren't necessarily exclusive, anyway.

Perhaps another Andrew report on what we can look forward to once the bugs are fixed would help. I'm not sure what will and what won't work anymore or what is for now just a bug.

Posted by seashell
February 9, 2008 12:23 AM | Reply | Permalink

me too...♪

Posted by TheraP
February 9, 2008 9:03 AM | Reply | Permalink

I can give you some level of update. There are really two issues. And they're worth keeping distinct amidst the understandable annoyance of the current problems with the site.

The first issue is that we had a mix of hardware issues (not enough) and software issues that where exposed on full launch. We're using a brand new version of our software platform, Movable Type. And what's become clear is that it had some major bugs in it, ones that were exposed when running a high traffic site. We have a new server coming online on Monday and simultaneously both our tech people and the company that sells Movable Type are trying to get the bugs resolved. Clearly the most debilitating problem at the moment is the one with 'cookies', that's what makes people get logged out and not have comments or posts appear.

I'm fairly confident we'll be able to get those issues resolved by the first couple days of next week.

Second, we have the design of the new site itself. I think once the glitches are worked out people will see that there is a lot to like about the new set up. Existing features work better. There are new features the old site didn't have. And for those who like our other sites too discussions at TPMCafe can expand out onto discussions on our other sites and vice versa.

Having said that, there are definitely features the new site does not have. As I said in an earlier comment thread there were a host of different reasons behind the switch, some of which went beyond the issues of TPMCafe itself to our ability to run the network of sites together, costs involved, ability to run the different sites on different software platforms etc.

The main function that people are missing is the ability to track comments. The new 'community' version of Movable Type has no such capacity built into it. However, we see how key it was to how people use the site. So once we get the immediate server issues ironed out -- hopefully next week -- we are going to start investigating the possibilities and costs of having our programmers design from scratch a plugin that would either directly replicate he old system or come up with a new way of doing it which accomplishes the same purpose. Realistically, the time for something like that to come online would probably be measured in weeks. It will cost a fair amount of money. And it will take time to do the programming.

As for subscription, we've given this a lot of thought. And it's something that we may do. Unfortunately, the economics don't necessarily work very well, for a number of reasons. I'll try to address this issue in another post.

Posted by Josh Marshall
February 9, 2008 12:39 AM | Reply | Permalink

Thanks for the informative reply.

Life's ironies include the things one would buy, but aren't for sale, and those that are, which one doesn't want.

p.s. improved login timeout behavior, maybe? I'm being asked for login without losing the text (which I copied).

Posted by Tom Wright
February 9, 2008 2:03 AM | Reply | Permalink

Thank you. That IS helpful.

Posted by seashell
February 9, 2008 2:28 AM | Reply | Permalink

Love your "some sort of error" trademark!

Posted by TheraP
February 9, 2008 9:02 AM | Reply | Permalink

This is a little bit encouraging, Josh, as I literally woke up at 3 am this morning, thinking that the Cafe is broken.

Not only is the tracker crucial to being able to hold "conversations" and have little "tables" around which friends could gather, but the private message feature enabled private messages - to me a crucial way of holding conversations you didn't want to make public.

There is nowhere like the Cafe on the web. And since there was no warning, there was no way to exchange email addresses, for example, through a private message. No way to save our blog posts.

I hope the new Cafe works out. But at the moment there are really no upsides. Only downsides.

I think EC works better. And The Muck works better. Now that people need to register.

But what seems to be happening re blog posts is that people post what would have been a comment on a thread as blog. And anything worthwhile quickly disappears without having much of an impact.

Ok. Sorry for complaining. But right now I'm feeling like my govt is broken. And the Cafe is no longer "home." Homeless. Stateless. That's how I feel.

I sympathize with the problems the staff must be feeling. And I think the tpm staff are doing great work. With the political end of tpm better now than it was before. The broken part is the Cafe. I fear it will be hard to get back in the new format.

So thanks for all the hard work!!! It is only due to the great place you've created that the "regulars" are now in such deep mourning.

Posted by TheraP
February 9, 2008 7:58 AM | Reply | Permalink

This backs up my comment. What's happened at the Cafe is:

"a twist on a market research technique called "deprivation research," in which marketers measure how loyal consumers are to a brand or product by taking it away from them."

And:

"The insight gained helps marketers design new marketing and ad ploys that will resonate better with consumers."

Got this from the Wall Street Journal article related to the Burger King ad where they filmed customers being told the Whopper was no longer on the menu (a bogus claim).

See: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB120244090812952965.html.html?mod=blogs

Mind you, I'm not saying Josh did this on purpose. But the effect is the same! (except Burger King did it as a hoax to drive up demand.... and here you have increased demand... but the demand cannot be satisfied! It could have been such a great pr campaign if it had only lasted a few hours or days!)

♪♪♪

Posted by TheraP
February 9, 2008 8:37 AM | Reply | Permalink

Josh, I want you to know that I understand that you have budgetary concerns. It has been very easy for me to forget that, because I have the happy luxury of coming here "for free" whenever I want. I do take that for granted.
What I try to "pay" is in quality in my writing, courtesy and appropriate following of "community" norms -- I am one of those TheraP calls back-benchers -- , and honing my expertise so I can bring new information to Cafe readers.
I confess I am not taking enough advantage, yet, of the amalgamation of all the sites. I am just trying to post a readable piece with no good editor, get my comments to show, and find replies to any of my comments.
It is getting better all the time. And I have not left, at least. Thanks for commenting here; it was very welcome, Josh.

Posted by Carol Gee
February 9, 2008 8:03 AM | Reply | Permalink

Thanks Josh. I've got nowhere to go without looking around presently anyway, other than a couple of old tech boards, along with some hit-n-rung insurgency on current targets of opportunity, (know any new Fed-up sosigh_itty laablog sites?). I just walked away from what was once a decent and civil current events board with many political viewpoints, because FearHillary was approaching pandemic levels, and I was degrading into pure derisiveness in response. If the trolling and flaming does not include a very strong element of satire and sarcasm, where is the fun? The post about Judicial Watch's release of spewing charges that Hillary was still covering up from the early nineties, substantiated with very weak documentation was the beginning of the end. When I came up with some very interesting tie-ins with Vigeurie, plus his newly opened up anti-Hillary website used as a circle-jerk echoing node, all I got in reply was a bit of drooling.

What happended with the Drupal codebase? Did it fail scaling up?

Anybody looking for some outrageous House Conservatve action is welcome to look at a small congressional records archive I marked up a few months ago that I cal: "Faith of Our conservatives-tearing down the wall between church and hate." it documents some bizarre dissent to Hate crimes legislation passed last summer by the house, but now languishing in the Senate. the transcript of Mike Pence, speaking as chairman of the House Conservative Committee warmly embrace Jefferson's "Wall of Separation Between Church and State". Pence should be continuously flogged for this hypocritical argument.

Posted by PseudoCyAnts
February 9, 2008 5:43 AM | Reply | Permalink

That's the sad part for me---I can't find anywhere else to go, except for Eric's new saloon:

http://projectlucidity.com/forum/index.php#4

Posted by Tom Wright
February 9, 2008 10:22 AM | Reply | Permalink