Your pain is mine as well, Tom.

Speaking as one of the people who has only known and appreciated this site for a short time, help us out. What can we do (or what can I do individually) to get back to what you're talking about?

From another long-timer, thanks for keeping the issue in the foreground, Tom.

Good to 'see' you, AmericanDreamer!

I'd been reading TPM for a few months before I began posting a few weeks ago. TPM is the first site of this kind in which I've participated to any extent, so I don't have much to compare it to. That said, I can't but agree to the various observations that have been made.

I've spent some time reading referenced posts, including several by Josh. It seems that things are simply taking longer to fix than was thought.

While I'm here, and despite having asked the question on another thread -- I think that thread is dead, so my question won't get answered -- I have no the style buttons on my screen. I have "(you may use HTML tags for style)" but that's it.

What I thought this meant was that if you knew html tags, you could use them. So, I learned some and have begun using them. But no buttons. My question on the other thread was, is it because I use Firefox browser?

I checked to see if my Internet Explorer made the difference but it didn't show them either. I was asked if I wanted to install a later version of Adobe Flash; I didn't. In the event this might anything to do with it, I checked the version of Flash I have in Firefox, and it's the latest.

I don't think there is too much reason to discuss anything anymore. Set the record straight and go. The conventional wisdom is that more bloggers would give people a greater variety of subjects but it is proof that Edna St. Vincent Millay was right - "it isn't one damned thing after another, it's the same damned thing over and over." An endless cycle of "Why I hate the Clintons" and "why I love Obama".

My advice to you? Don't get attached to websites. It's just the internet dude.

Sigh. I've only been hear a couple months, I think, and just about had a nervous breakdown for a while, but now I skip over the nastiest posts and look for the folks who're actually saying something.

It's the curse of popularity. You guys were outed by the MSM, and now we all can't get enough of you. The New Yorker ran an article with a long New Yorker-style discourse on MSM vs. blogs, including a stretch on TPM. We're all sunk.

Thanks for revisiting the issue, Tom. To me, the old TPM really was like a coffee house. Some people screaming, some calmly making cogent points and all of it in a friendly sort of “Oh, Yeah” social setting while still assessing group judgments (rating, agreeing, ignoring, criticizing, threaded conversations in real time).

I don’t object to JoshCo. making money but when your local Ma and Pa burger joint sells out to Mickey D’s, it’s a whole ‘nother thing. Though TPM has tried to appear impartial, it has become a campaign site. It is focused on the minutia of every daily nuance that props up one candidate (?) to the detriment of the other.

I don’t mind the promotion but the obsession with all of this campaign detritus is distracting from real issues (when there are little differences between candidates). Then there are the technical issues- Oi. Well, if ‘taint broke…

As one of the old-timers, I can attest to how great and special the crowd of people were who used to post here. (Some of whom still do...)

In fact, more than that, we were incredibly smart. We had solve world hunger, and developed a new form of clean energy.

F*&k if I know what happened to those posts, though.

Thank you for this thread.

I won't repeat all the things I have said before on similar threads.

But I would like to add one thing: It would show some basic appreciation for the users and fans of this website, that if it is impossible to fix glitches within a short amount of time, that instructions be written up regarding them, prominently displayed.

I.E.: "We have a text editor installed for Reader Blog posts, but we don't have one for comments. This means you must use html in comments for any fancy text, but must NOT use it in blog posts. In blog posts, you must use the text editor and not code, and if you compose your posts elsewhere and paste them, you must use a code-free utility like Notepad." Or "Author names are missing on many Reader's Blog pages. This is glitch, we apologize." Or "Warning! Only the last ten of your Blog Posts will be saved on TPMCafe for the foreseeable future."

Relying on one's customers to help one another by rumor, when they are having difficulty using the system themselves, all suffering from lack of information, simply makes one look bad. It also gets one a lot of complaint emails, I bet. So much better to be transparent about the problems, post them where all users can see them. That would make it seem more like a community effort than a situation with a bossman who is trying to hide something and the customers have to try to figure it out whispering amongst themselves. If labor time is the problem, in the end, taking time to post instructions, not to mention a mission statement (what the heck are you selling?) will save a great deal of time and grief in the end.

Most individual bloggers that I have followed have always done that, explain the system they have and announced its flaws, and I really don't understand why in the two plus years I've been a user here, it's seems like one is pulling teeth to try to get simple instructions about the product you are offering. All I can think of as a possible reason, in business terms, is that you continually want to be able to "bait and switch."

post here what you think
http://tpmcafe.talkingpointsmemo.com/talk/2008/04/blogging-as-part-of-the-media.php#comments