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TPM Café: Now Part of the Problem
I submit that TPM Café is mortally sick, and is in serious need of aggressive editorial intervention to pull it back from the brink, and restore it to health. Due to editorial neglect, the site has gone, quite literally, insane.
My evidence? Here are 15 major issues that have occupied the outside world during the past few days, each worthy of serious discussion in their own right, but none of which seems to have attracted even casual notice from the hallucinating, pathetically isolated inmates at the Reader Posts nut farm.
1. Five
days of mob violence in South
Africa
2. Myanmar catastrophe and aftermath
3. China earthquake and aftermath
4. Medvedev visit to China
5. Cuba/US diplomatic episode over funneling of cash to mercenaries
6. Continued US/Iran tension
7. Israeli/Syrian talks
8. US military Koran
target practice incident leading to protests and deaths in Afghanistan
9. Oil surges to $137 a barrel
10. Rising global commodities prices
11. US oil execs testify before Congress
12. Petraeus confirmation hearings before Congress
13. Israeli airstrikes on Gaza
14. Major Hizbollah political victory in Lebanon
15. Fighting in Sadr City
Of course, I could have added a number of other topics related to important global affairs: North Korea, nuclear proliferation, global oil politics, environmental issues, global financial issues, global trade issues, etc.
And now here are the 25 posts appearing in the Recent Reader Posts section, as of 12:40 am on Friday, May 23. I have indicated the topic of each post in square brackets below each title. As the reader can see, 23 of the 25 posts deal directly with the ongoing US election. The other two, numbers 8 and 9 on the list, deal with important non-election topics, but only discuss them in a partisan political context.
1. The Truth is Out
There!
[Obama]
2. GOP Can't Make Up
Its Mind About Hitler
[McCain/Republicans]
3. How Often Will
McCain Act/Speak Before He Thinks?
[McCain]
4. Attend DNC Rules Meeting and say NO to Hillary's Desire
to Break the Rules
[Obama/Clinton]
5. Here's My Olive Branch
[Obama/Clinton]
6. Mass Homesickness Strikes GOP
[Humor: Republicans
and 2008 Election]
7. Dear Senator McCain: I am going to lecture you
[McCain]
8. Bush Administration--anything but American, must be 3rd
World
[Bush v.
Congressional Democrats: Justice Department]
9. Silver Platter Special of the Day
[Bush v. Congressional Democrats: Blackwater]
10. Hallelujah! The
Nightmare Ticket is Dead!
[Obama/Clinton]
11. The Myth of Unity
[Obama/Clinton]
12. Hillary "Blanche" Clinton - Depending on the
Kindness of Racists and Karl Rove
[Obama/Clinton]
13. Why We'll Be
Seeing Clinton on The Ticket
[Obama/Clinton]
14. Uncommitted: Double Secret Disenfranchisement
[Obama/Clinton]
15. This post doesn't
kiss Obama's butt or smack Hillary around (sorry)
[Links to earlier
posts, mostly about Obama/Clinton]
16. Swiftboating
without Swiftboating
[McCain]
17. McCain Blows Another One
[McCain]
18. Suggestion for Disaffected Clinton Supporters
[Obama/Clinton]
19. Where's Sean Wilentz?
[Obama/Clinton]
20. Hillary and the
Nuclear Option
[Obama/Clinton]
21. Wright and Obama. Each side Strikes a Minister/Preacher
[Obama/McCain]
22. Nomination Math 101: How Obama Is Ahead by over 1
Million in the Popular Vote (Even Counting FL & MI)
[Obama/Clinton]
23. Activists challenging Michigan delegate selection not scheduled
for May 31st
[Obama/Clinton]
24. My mock general election (from the POV of Obama)
[Obama/McCain]
25. Clinton,
stay the course
[Obama/Clinton]
I trust visitors to the site will recognize that there is nothing extraordinary about the above list, but that this nearly exclusive focus by TPM Café readers on discussion of the US election, and on the personal side-battles and running jokes the discussion of the election has generated, has been typical of the site for months.
It is my contention that TPM Café is now officially “part of the problem”, and is contributing to the same infantilization of American minds, and morbid isolation from 99% of the real world, that has been fostered by the mainstream media for years, with its socially pathological entertainment culture.
Comments (130)
Interesting topics, Dan K.
Why have you not posted on any of them?
May 23, 2008 2:35 AM | Reply | Permalink
If someone posts on one of those topics on the front page, I try to post a comment, time permitting. But I gave up on the Reader Posts area, since there just doesn't seem to be an audience for them here.
May 23, 2008 2:42 AM | Reply | Permalink
Dan, with all due respect, most of th folks here are political junkies. That doesn't make any of us "the problem" or even part of it. With the election having everyone biting their fingernails as to when Hillary will exit and/or try a new way to screw Obama, it seems natural that the topics lately focus on the ongoing developments, new metrics, etc. I'm not unaware of the news. I just think all the events domestically and abroad that you list hang on who becomes the next president. The approach to nearly all of the news you itemize will change depending on the outcome of this race. Have as much patience as Hillary seems to require of us.
May 23, 2008 2:47 AM | Reply | Permalink
It is an historical election year, after all.
May 23, 2008 11:47 PM | Reply | Permalink
You do know that this is a political blog. And most of the topic articles are indexed in Election Central or Muckraker?
May 23, 2008 2:52 AM | Reply | Permalink
If by a "political blog" you mean a blog devoted solely to the discussion of political parties, political figures, political fundraising, political races and campaigns, and partisan political battles, then I disagree with you. This site was established as a blog dealing both with politics in that sense, and a broader discussion of ideas and issues less directly tied to electoral politics. There was a department called America Abroad, which was devoted exclusively to foreign affairs - and not just with what some politician of the moment might be saying about foreign affairs in his campaign - and that department was one of the most active areas on the site. There was, and still is, a Book Club, that has treated books by a variety of scholars concerned with issues other than partisan politicking. The Book Club has appeared lately to be dying, given the relatively low number of comments generated by most of the posts.
But it is true that the design, commercial and editorial choices the operators of the blog have made recently are turning it into more of a "political blog", in the style of Kos, Ny DD etc. - which in my view is a shame. To me, it looks like the decision was made to sell advertising by pandering to a less discerning crowd of political junkies who are just looking for their daily fix of horserace crap.
May 23, 2008 3:27 AM | Reply | Permalink
Wow.
Sorry you feel that the political battle isn't worth any type of activism. Josh risks a lot putting the articles out there for us if you have been following developments closely. For you to diminish his work would only have others look at the source of criticism.
IF you could do better you should. Blog creation is very much on the cheap.
May 23, 2008 3:35 AM | Reply | Permalink
Activism is fine. And TPM consists of a family of blogs, at least three of which are all about politics all the time, and afford ample opportunities for the pursuit of engaged activism.
But TPM Cafe is a fourth department of TPM, and was designed, or so I thought, to reach beyond the narrow confines of the so-called "activist blogosphere" into deeper discussions of the actual issues politics exists to address.
May 23, 2008 3:44 AM | Reply | Permalink
So, it was better when someone else was wiring the books. And all you had to do was offer discussion and criticism.
You don't like the editorial decisions of the blog anymore. But you won't venture to do better.
You want an international perspective, talk of action. But don't want responsibility to be active.
So let me get this straight.
You want someone to maintain a blog at their expense, time and life effort, with less advertisement so they can generate less income and revenue, to obtain only the perspectives you find of interest from authors and related contributors that have invested their life's effort, time and sacrifice.
So you can be satisified.
May 23, 2008 3:56 AM | Reply | Permalink
Having seen Dan contribute quite a lot, I think you have seriously misunderstood something.
May 23, 2008 4:05 AM | Reply | Permalink
What do I not understand?
May 23, 2008 4:10 AM | Reply | Permalink
Instead of asking someone else to do your homework, take a deep breath and start reading from the beginning again.
May 23, 2008 4:24 AM | Reply | Permalink
I asked a question in relation to your statement of projecting that I do not understand "something". Explain please.
May 23, 2008 4:34 AM | Reply | Permalink
Maybe you should try to explain. Dan has contributed. (Quite a lot.) And you ask Dan to contribute. How can that be?
May 23, 2008 5:04 AM | Reply | Permalink
You may have seen the definition of the problem?
...infantilization of the American mind and insolation from the real world.
What have You done to counteract this process?
May 23, 2008 5:07 AM | Reply | Permalink
You don't like the editorial decisions of the blog anymore. But you won't venture to do better.
You want an international perspective, talk of action. But don't want responsibility to be active.
I'm not sure I understand what you are claiming. I think I have probably contributed over a million words to this site.
May 23, 2008 9:32 AM | Reply | Permalink
1 million words. That's 240 hours typing flat out at 70wpm. You should find a way to get paid for your writing.
May 23, 2008 12:22 PM | Reply | Permalink
Fat chance. I didn't say the words were good enough that someone would actually pay me for them. But I think my estimate of the volume is probably accurate.
May 23, 2008 12:41 PM | Reply | Permalink
It's unfortunate that the archives from the old Cafe aren't yet available, because if they were you could see for yourself that DanK's posts were often especially insightful and well written, especially on the topic of the Middle East. He probably could get paid for that sort of writing, if he was so inclined. He's too modest in his reply.
I realize that not everyone comes here for the purpose of engaging in in-depth analysis. But why should it be an either-or choice? Couldn't we have both?
May 23, 2008 9:46 PM | Reply | Permalink
No kidding
May 23, 2008 4:10 PM | Reply | Permalink
Oh boo hoo freakin' hoo. Go elsewhere for your World News. We are the center of the known universe, the one indispensable nation, the alpha and omega--who gives a crap about some piece of 3rd world real estate with a slight water problem, and another with a little bit of moving ground?
May 24, 2008 12:32 AM | Reply | Permalink
It's particularly striking to see this development at a medium that used to appear more grown up.
One wonders why this has happened.
I can not believe the primary election season to be the only, not even the main, reason. There must be other explanations, but who am I to tell?
Maybe there has been a certain element of bad luck (as in software problems) but beside that, I've more and more come to ponder whether the Cafe was initially intended for another crowd, less radical and less critical of the traditional rather pro-corporative and colonialist positions of the Democratic Party?
Running a site like TPM with its subsites requires incomes, and they must come from somewhere. Maybe a serious or a "anti"-American site doesn't attract so many advertizers? Maybe it gives better profit to let the TPM Cafe regress back to a behavior of early teenagers?
Regardless of how or why, it is no good sign for the future of the Democratic Party, nor for the future of the American democracy.
May 23, 2008 3:06 AM | Reply | Permalink
The problem is that TPM Cafe has, de facto, become Election Central Cafe. Election Central is, quite frankly, what brings most eyeballs to this site. Most people don't even look at TPM Cafe--they just see the posts to the right of the Election Central screen and navigate from there. Since elections are what they are interested in, elections are what they post.
Separating TPM Cafe from Election Central (and giving the latter its own blog capabilities) would probably restore some sanity to TPM Cafe.
May 23, 2008 12:17 PM | Reply | Permalink
My sentiments exactly.
May 23, 2008 12:25 PM | Reply | Permalink
Thank you for explaining that so clearly!
It's very simple and was apparent from the first days of the new software: the two audiences were joined with the software change and the Election Central audience was vastly larger. The blog churn design, with "most popular wins something" feature, assured that those interested in other topics would see that it was a pretty futile exercise to try to poost on other issues.
They had developed several brands with different audiences on separate websites, and they decided to break those down and cater to the majority. The software design ensured that the minorities would have a hard time finding others of similar tastes. Even people more interested in Muckraker type topics were affected, those type of posts get few comments and recommends as well.
The reason that someone like Tom Wright argued so strongly (some derisively called it whining) to get some of the old software features back was so that people with other interests could find each other and discuss topics of interest other than election topics. The software as it stands, still without any much tracking ability of any kind is very blunt and makes it difficult for those smaller audiences with other interests to find each other.
Leaving as it stands, editorial intervention doesn't help that much, as you can try to get a contributor for TPMCafe to post on, say, the kind of topics that interest DanK, but DanK will be one of the few still around to comment or recommend it. The software defeats that as the majority audience dominates content overall, and this makes others with other tastes take a look and say "not the place for me."
May 23, 2008 2:40 PM | Reply | Permalink
I think it's important to remind those like DanK who think the situation shows extreme change that TPMCafe was AlWAYS a poorly defined brand and he is remembering a short time when they managed to have a section called "America Abroad" which was actually very narrow in itself in that it focused only on American foreign policy. But that was only because a group of think tankers that were acquaintances of Josh Marshall chose to post here for a while. When they got tired of it, it was basically American politics posts left.
The only time that the Cafe had a more global skew was early on when Kate Cambor was the manager of it. She would elevate posts to the front page that were on something other than American politics and I think she was the one responsible for soliciting a few non-Amerocentric contributors like Pascal Riche.
But management always seemed reluctant to define what it was and seemed more interested in seeing what the audience would make it.
Right now it is like a non-brand, it is nothing that would interest nobody. This is it's current menu:
Anything there that would make most people say "oh yeah I've got to click on one of those and read more on it"? That whole menu is a silly useless waste of space and categorization. (The only time it was useful was when they have "America Abroad" and "New Orleans" as topic sections, those made sense, one could visualize audiences for them.
Management has never figured out what TPMCafe should be, why expect users to? To be blunt, in that situation, there is no reason that the majority readership shouldn't take over, as there is no apparent desire shown by management to create spaces for other audiences. Indeed, they chose software that wouldn't even allow sub-audiences to develop on their own.
May 23, 2008 2:59 PM | Reply | Permalink
Well said.
May 23, 2008 4:23 PM | Reply | Permalink
Bingo!
May 23, 2008 2:41 PM | Reply | Permalink
You're BSing me. You don't know what you're talking about! ~ Chris Matthews
May 23, 2008 3:17 AM | Reply | Permalink
Although this is a site that focuses upon the political process in the US, I agree that there is a general obsessiveness with the election here and elsewhere in the media to the detriment of other news.
At least speaking for myself: guilty as charged.
May 23, 2008 3:19 AM | Reply | Permalink
Try AP.org, the BBC, hareetz.com, Al Jazerra, PBS, NPR radio and others for international news.
May 23, 2008 3:24 AM | Reply | Permalink
The news is there, that's no problem.
The problem is that seemingly the interest for what to do about the news does no longer exist neither at the Cafe nor in America.
May 23, 2008 3:29 AM | Reply | Permalink
What do you suggest?
And what is going to be your first initiative?
May 23, 2008 3:39 AM | Reply | Permalink
There is a difference between discussion of global affairs and mere news about global affairs. I used to come here because it afforded opportunities to read extended pieces by people like Chalmers Johnson, and to be able to engage Johnson in a discussion of what he had wrote. Or someone involved in the formation of US foreign policy might write something, and we could then engage that person with our complaints about those policies. There are still posts like this, but for some reason there are not as many interesting people around anymore to discuss them, and they don't seem to sustain extended discussions and debates.
May 23, 2008 3:36 AM | Reply | Permalink
We're busy with campaigns. Submitting proposed policies to the incoming administration.
May 23, 2008 3:43 AM | Reply | Permalink
...and to be able to engage Johnson in a discussion of what he had wrote.
Sheesh...
Rather, what he had written.
May 23, 2008 3:47 AM | Reply | Permalink
busted.
May 23, 2008 4:07 AM | Reply | Permalink
The Myth of Unity is actually not so much about the election as it is about the TPM community and what our common values are. So that post, like this one, fits in the other popular category: Commentary about TPM.
May 23, 2008 3:51 AM | Reply | Permalink
(Not that that alters your main point significantly. Just wanted to give DF credit for stepping outside the done-to-death topics.)
May 23, 2008 3:53 AM | Reply | Permalink
Fair observation. Thank you for pointing it out CaliforniaPaige.
May 23, 2008 10:12 AM | Reply | Permalink
I submit that TPM Café is mortally sick, and is in serious need of aggressive editorial intervention to pull it back from the brink, and restore it to health.
onset was probably approximate to tpm's expansion through the pathogen-bearing vector, yersinia pestelectioncentralitis, because in no time at all, tpmyp spawned swarms of mycobacterial hits that enriched as much as they infected. as a result, one could surmise host tpm actually welcomed metastasis evidence recent consolidation that had the effect of increasing tpmyp proximity while weakening or depleting tpmc immunity.
shorter: tpmc wasn't self-supporting so tpm simply made a business decision to (temporarily?) displace quality for sustainability.
prog/ignosis. individuals can: a) adapt to the infection by creating topic wards that meet their criteria for discourse in the hope of attracting like-minded patients; b) capitulate by pulling their own plugs; or c) per this post, hope/plea for prompt, comprehensive intervention by the host, time & resources permitting.
this mycobacterium prefer a, and think you'd make an ideal (on right side of the bed good hair days) ward captain to change, or at least mitigate the course of said infection.
May 23, 2008 4:30 AM | Reply | Permalink
err. "this mycobacterium [prefers] a, and [thinks] you'd ..."
May 23, 2008 4:33 AM | Reply | Permalink
busted.
May 23, 2008 4:38 AM | Reply | Permalink
NOT busted. Self Corrected. Big difference.
May 23, 2008 7:56 AM | Reply | Permalink
Difference without a distinction.
But thanks for playing.
May 23, 2008 2:21 PM | Reply | Permalink
The spelling and grammar policing is silly.
May 23, 2008 4:18 PM | Reply | Permalink
Everyone for a Preview function, raise your hand.
May 23, 2008 11:52 PM | Reply | Permalink
Thanks for the post. Now for some candor: for me the election has become a kind of drug. I have begun liking disliking one of the candidates -- I wait for this person to make mistakes, so I can feel self-righteous for a while. After a while, I want the person to make mistakes.
This is kind of sickening. I noticed how sick it was when I was actually happy (for a few dreary minutes) that one of the candidate's associates had apparently said something racist. He hadn't, but why should I ever be glad for racism? Why be glad that yet another person would have his/her reputation ruined by the need for campaign gossip?
I do not believe the election unimportant, nor do I believe the candidates interchangeable. However, it does give me something to focus my energy on that I feel I can control. Feeling "right" feels good; making someone else "wrong" feels good. In the long run, as you note, it does nothing to enrich.
Then, too, I don't have to think about torture.
I don't have to be responsible.
My guess is that TPM may be getting some posters who are actually using the blog merely to stir the pot. McCain has been trolling for trollers of late.
Anyway, thanks.
May 23, 2008 5:07 AM | Reply | Permalink
Thanks LBS. I personally understand the addiction you are talking about. And I don't want to suggest for a moment that it doesn't matter which candidate is ultimately elected, or that it is not very important to work to elect the candidate you prefer.
But while that is going on, it is important to continue to create space for the intelligent discussion of substantive issues, with some measure of depth and with some detachment from the most excited political passions of the moment. In the United States, there are elections all the time. We can't keep taking holidays from seriousness during election seasons on the excuse that elections are so important that nothing else matters.
One reason Bush was able to lead us into a war so easily in 2002 and 2003 was a lack of effective Democratic resistance. And one reason Democrats offered such futile resistance is because the quality of foreign policy knowledge, debate and discussion in the broad Democratic Party community was very poor at the time. There were pockets of well-informed discussion. But the fact is that most of the major Democratic constituencies are dominated by domestic policy concerns, and the party leadership is consumed by politics, that is, by the business of contesting and winning elections. There was a sense at the time that Democrats just don't "do" foreign policy and national security, and were eager to get the war debate off the table, turn the discussion back to national security, and return to the business of trying to win the 2002 election.
I fear we're in roughly the same position now. While there is somewhat more foreign policy debate now than there was in 2002, it is superficial and confined to the level of dumbed down campaign talking points. It's still all about the elections, and serious public statesmanship is in short supply.
Recently, Iran came up for discussion, mainly because Bush attacked Obama's Iran policy, Obama and his supporters defended that policy, and McCain jumped on board with the Bush attacks. But the discussion was extremely superficial, because everyone immediately got down into shilling on behalf of their candidate. A large number of dubious contentions that both camps are making about Iran are allowed a free pass. Where Iran is concerned, the public is still wallowing in ignorance and drowning in propaganda. So if Bush decides on military action, it will be very difficult to avoid another outbreak of jingoistic mass stupidity.
The same is true of the recent "gas tax" debate. The country is facing a huge economic problem from soaring fuel costs, but instead of an intelligent discussion of the best approach to take to this problem, we got nothing but endless repetition of campaign talking points, and a lot of "gas tax, yes!" and "gas tax, no!" chearleading. Even the economists who chimed in seemed caught up in the political fever, and I personally found it difficult to get straight answers based on careful economic analysis as opposed to armchair guessing from economist-pundits.
May 23, 2008 10:56 AM | Reply | Permalink
And this is the problem with our national press and has been for some time now - the childish, gossipy, small minded digs at candidates.
May 23, 2008 4:45 PM | Reply | Permalink
The primary battle and upcoming election in general have clearly crowded out all other news. Several weeks ago, someone commented that there was no variety of posts. I've posted almost a dozen articles, mostly about the energy situation, but the only post that was discussed was the snippet about Obama being adopted by the Crow couple.
May 23, 2008 7:29 AM | Reply | Permalink
Well, part of the problem (for me, at least), is I'll read one of your posts like that, and think, "hmmm, very interesting", but not be able to add anything to it. That doesn't mean it wasn't worth posting, or that maybe I shouldn't have tried harder to add something of value. I will recommend such posts. If you see a lot of recommends and not many comments, however, it might simply mean that we can't think of anything useful to add to what you wrote.
May 23, 2008 8:00 AM | Reply | Permalink
Glad that someone is reading them, but I haven't seen many recommends, either.
May 23, 2008 9:18 AM | Reply | Permalink
Dan - I respectfully submit that it is not TPM Cafe that has gone crazy, it is America. Who in their right mind would want a one year long election campaign in a four-year election cycle? That's insane, and it is a terrible waste of time, money and energy that could be much better spent elsewhere.
TPM just reflects the world out there. TPM may be part of the problem, but the problem won't be fixed at TPM.
May 23, 2008 7:51 AM | Reply | Permalink
That's a good point. And it is actually longer than one year. Clinton and Obama officially started their candidacies, I believe, in January and March of 2007. By the time the election takes place, the campaign will have been running about 21 or 22 months.
May 23, 2008 11:13 AM | Reply | Permalink
That's scary. I was sorta going with the beginning of debates and really intense focus on the primaries, but you're right that the campaigning started months before that.
May 23, 2008 12:42 PM | Reply | Permalink
Dan,
Sounds like you've found a need, and that you feel very strongly that our country is going to hell without that particular service.
It also sounds like you have an audience of people who trust your judgment and enjoy your writing.
Maybe it's time to take a cue from the Josh Marshall play book and start your own blog.
May 23, 2008 8:04 AM | Reply | Permalink
Once upon a time I had a blog, Slouch. It existed for a couple of months back in 2004 after I left my previous job and before I started my current job. I have found since then that, with a full time job and other obligations and avocations, there is no way that I can devote the time that is required to maintain a blog at a level of quality that would satisfy me. What I can do is comment on other people's posts when I have the time, and participate in the discussions generated by those posts. And I can support the quality blog venues that already exist. That's what I'm trying to do now.
May 23, 2008 10:06 AM | Reply | Permalink
Dan, I had a nice long post written in which I was going to describe to you why, if you're going to be the one bitching about the Cafe, then you should be the one trying hardes to "fix" it.
Then I had to step away from my computer before it was completed and I had a change of heart.
Instead of "shooting the messenger" I'm going to simply explain why I'm here.
All of the issues you brought up are front and center in any number of media outlets that I see on a constant basis throughout the day.
I own and run a consulting company and confront several of the issues you brought up on a daily basis in real life. My gas costs blew my budget last year by 36%. My health insurance never stops going up. I don't feel I can raise my rates because the economy is hitting my customers just as hard as it's hitting me and I'm afraid they'll shop around.
The Cafe is someplace I can come and be distracted from all of that. The campaign lasting this long has become, just that, a fabulous distraction for millions of people. Instead of delving further into how much trouble our country and our economy is in, I can come out here and discuss the minutae of the days politics without the burden of everything else.
I had a customer about 7 years ago who was in his mid 40's and very successful. He was straight laced and kind of a tightwad. He also loved Heavy Metal music, the harder the better. It was way out of character for him, but it was his thing. After running my business for almost 8 years now, I get it. The music pounded just hard enough to get the thoughts of his business and his family out of his head for just a little while. He just needed a little sanity break and that's what gave it to him.
The Cafe does that for me and I think for a lot of other people as well.
May 23, 2008 10:20 AM | Reply | Permalink
Thanks you for waiting for those second thoughts Wolf1739. And it sounds like we're in agreement that something has gone a bit wrong when a site that was designed to be a place where people could learn more about issues of great importance, thoughtfully examine those issues, and develop ideas for addressing them, has become a site where people come instead to avoid serious discussion of those issues by engaging in the emotional substitute of partisan bickering about campaign minutiae.
That's what I mean when I complain about "team sport politics". A lot of political discussion reminds me of nothing so much as sports talk radio. People invest emotionally in a team, and then argue very passionately about the struggles of that team. But of course sports is a diversion.
May 23, 2008 11:30 AM | Reply | Permalink
You mistook what I wrote just slightly by taking the word distraction in a negative way.
I don't consider the topics discussed at the Cafe to be unimportant at all. The information shared and the discussions people are having contain insight as to how people are feeling about the politics of the moment.
Also, your repeated suggestion for "more editorial oversight" sounds like a Bush administration term for censorship. You want TPM to remove posts that you find trivial or unworthy.
It would surprise me a lot to find out that Josh intended to censor the site in such a way.
May 23, 2008 3:09 PM | Reply | Permalink
No, I don't want to see a single post or comment removed. Many will remember that I used to complain quite a bit about the old ratings system, because it was my view that nine times out of ten it was used to punish or silence politically unpopular views, to create an echo chamber, and to tendentiously label everything one disagreed with as "trolling". People were even from time to time banned from the site, and I never approved of that.
What I would like is for Josh and his staff to think more about the architecture of the TPM network of blogs, so that content is directed to the locations where it is most appropriately located, and so that space is fostered for the sustained, in-depth discussion of important kinds of content that require some nurturing, and don't just spring magically to life in the midst of a melee.
I would also like them to do more to attract more interesting writers to the blog, to promote a greater diversity of outlooks, to seek out important dissenting views, and to encourage those who already have permanent front page gigs to aim higher in what they post.
May 23, 2008 3:55 PM | Reply | Permalink
Dan, I completely agree with you, and I commented in support of your position on Andrew's thread.
But I do think everybody here needs to be a little bit patient. The Clinton campaign is going to end very soon. The general election campaigns are already beginning, and with Obama as one of the competitors, his at least will be more about substance than any election campaign in the last 25 or 30 years. And with any luck it will force the McCain side to address issues as well. After taking some time to lick their wounds and reconcile to the inevitable, the vast majority of Clinton supporters will come around to Obama, especially as the truth of what a McCain presidency would really mean begins to sink in.
And after November (and the inauguration, which I think and hope will be of Obama), the horse race will be over and we can get back to discussing more of the issues like what you list.
In other words, your complaints are well-founded, but they come at the time when the infantilization and morbid isolationism of the American mind are peaking. This has been going on a long time, and it's going to have to get (just a little) worse before it gets better. In my opinion, the healing is already beginning.
May 23, 2008 10:46 AM | Reply | Permalink
Good observations, I've also noticed practically no one pays any attention or engages at all with the slew of fine front-page posts anymore unless they are part of the Obama/Clinton brawl.
May 23, 2008 10:53 AM | Reply | Permalink
Yes, that is my impression as well. And while I can see that part of the issue is the out of control mass phenomenon of election frenzy, something neither Andrew or Josh can do anything about, I do think some more aggressive editorial direction could help.
May 23, 2008 11:19 AM | Reply | Permalink
Dan: Yesterday, I noticed an actual, serious, thoughtful conversation between two Cafe members. That this would be notable demonstrates just how much the Cafe has changed, and I agree that in general, it's not been for the better. Being somewhat of a political junkie myself, I don't think that TPM can be accused of "pandering," and I wouldn't want less of an opportunity to discuss politics, just more of an opportunity to discuss other issues. I learned a tremendous amount by just reading the debates in the old Cafe. It is disappointing that the Cafe has experienced such a significant decrease in thoughtful discussion.
I tend to think that more separation between Election Central and the Cafe would solve the problem. Those who wished to discuss pure politics could do so at Election Central, while those who wanted to explore other issues in more depth could read and post primarily at the Cafe. I think Josh is aiming for a cross-pollination of ideas, and that could be fairly easily achieved by placing a list on each of the main pages - EC and the Cafe - of topics from the other area.
As I read that conversation yesterday, I found myself yearning for November. Perhaps then the Cafe will return to it's old self, although we seem to already have lost many of the people who posted regularly. Actually, it seems to me that Josh might achieve increased and more long-lasting success with the site by making the separation now, so that the site won't be effected much by a mass exodus of election junkies that might occur once the election is over. Separating EC and the Cafe would allow for greater continuity.
May 23, 2008 11:31 AM | Reply | Permalink
... I wouldn't want less of an opportunity to discuss politics, just more of an opportunity to discuss other issues.
I agree with that Wordie. I do like to discuss politics, and I can get very down and dirty about it too. But if the aspiration is to maintain a site where a lot happens that is above that level, then a lot more needs to be done by the management. Josh and Andrew took a step in the right direction when they separated Election Central from TPM Cafe. Election Central is one place I go when all I want is to get into it about politics. But the Reader Posts venue seems to have brought back the down and dirty Election Central phenomenon with a vengeance. That style of discussion seems to reproduce itself like Milfoil absent aggressive editorial/ecological countermeasures. As I said before, this wouldn't be so much of a problem if it was confined to the Reader Posts section, but the invasive weeds there now seem to be chocking off the life on other parts of the site, because they have created their own ecosystem which is taking over everything else.
What is happening? Well suppose you start an actual cafe that you hope to turn into a site where people will turn out for edifying discussion in convivial surroundings, performances by musicians and poets, etc. But suppose you also decide to allow unrestricted drug use in the cafe. (Maybe it's a cafe somewhere in Europe.) Pretty soon the place is just a drug den, with people puking in the bathrooms and hallways, crack whores giving handjobs in the corner and dealers beating up delinquent payers in the back alley and parking lot. The folk singers notice that nobody is paying any attention to them anymore, and stop coming.
I recognize that I can get strung out with the other junkies on partisan political yammering as much as anyone. So why not have a special Reader Posts area where people go for that kind of discussion? When you and I want to shoot up with some partisan political smack, we can go to the Reader Posts page. But we could come here for something else.
The TPM Cafe of two years ago was not some sort of effete intellectual salon. The comments sections were filled with plenty of flame wars, hysterical ravings and other kinds of nastiness. But there was good stuff mixed in, and on the whole a certain level of discipline was imposed because the front page posts were subject to editorial control, and almost everyone who visited the site was here to participate in the discussion of those posts.
May 23, 2008 12:16 PM | Reply | Permalink
Can't this issue easily be addressed by creating a separate section for current events? You can currently designate your post "Muckraker" or "Election Central". The Muckraker recommended list is not the same as the EC recommended list. If a new designation for "Current Events" were added, Dan and Wordie and Guest could ignore the election content for which they have so much disdain go straight to the Current Events sections.
(It might be necessary to force posters to choose one and only category for their posts to prevent abuse. Many of the Muckraker blogs are still election-related.)
May 23, 2008 11:50 AM | Reply | Permalink
If election-related posts were all directed toward Election Central (checkbox when posting, allowing only one section to be selected), and there were a separate Reader Blog list and separate recommendations for each section, that would improve things greatly. The people who wanted to discuss elections only wouldn't be disappointed, as they would still have a place to do that, and there could be cross-pollination between the two sections by providing a list of recommended posts from the other side on each front page. In other words, the Election Central recommended posts could appear on the Cafe sidebar, but in a separate list of their own, along with a separate list of recommended posts from the Cafe itself, and vice versa. In the meantime, there would be a way for good posts about non-election-related material to get noticed and everyone would be happy. :)
Please note, Genghis, that neither Dan nor Guest nor I said we didn't like politics (I don't know where you came up with "distain"). It's just that it doesn't seem to make sense to have two separate sections that have both been completely taken over by political discussions to the detriment of any other sort of discussion.
I suspect that even were we to institute this change, politics-related stuff would seep into the Cafe. It's just the season and we can't get around it. But it would allow other material to be posted much more easily and also start to build the site for when the election is over.
May 23, 2008 1:46 PM | Reply | Permalink
Wordie, I think that we're on the same page and that separate sections would address the issues. But briefly on disdain:
It's fine with me if Dan and Other prefer other topics, but there are clear implications that they think Election Central is a shithole. Doesn't really help the discussion.
May 23, 2008 2:02 PM | Reply | Permalink
I won't hide my disdain for Election Central and the type of discourse it fosters here in the Reader Posts. I suppose there is some self-loathing mixed in with that judgment, since I have occasionally posted comments on Election Central and here.
Some years ago, it was generally accepted by the new generation of blog-influenced political observers that mainstream political discourse in the United States was a debased mess. It was a dumbed-down, intellectually fraudulent wasteland populated by political spin doctors, hacks, operatives, and brain dead mainstream media, all collectively locked into idiotic forms of conventional wisdom, aping the approved positions of lobbyists and pressure groups, promoting ignorance, and complacently pumping a hegemonic imperial value system that excluded the perspectives of vast numbers of dissenting Americans.
That national apparatus for mainstream foreign policy discourse was in the hands of a small number of elites, all out to protect their own privileges, promote their own interests, and pass off falsehoods as the truth for a clueless mass of passive media captives.
The new world of blogs was exciting in part because the discussion on a large number of the blogs was clearly of a higher quality and richer in insight than that in the mainstream media, even that in several established "highbrow" periodicals. There was a feeling that sacred cows were dropping like flies, and that bullshit was finally being called everywhere, on a daily basis. When some media hack tried to pass off a Middle East tall tale as the truth, someone like Juan Cole or Marc Lynch was there to correct the record. There was a period when the conventional journalists in print periodicals were reacting with something close to panic, because their game had so clearly been called, and they had been exposed as frauds, incompetents or liars.
And when established foreign policy poobahs came here to TPM Cafe to reassert the prerogatives of the Council of Foreign Relations or the Wilson School, or uber-establishment youth auxiliary groups like the Truman Democrats, some of us were here to rake them over the coals and say "No way! No more of this imperial flim-flam! No more paneled-wall elitism and neoliberal apologetics for power and wealth! No more Aipac stooging!"
That's almost gone now, and the spirit of dissent and resistance to a violent, militaristic, morally fanatical and avaricious American elite has been co-opted and dissipated. The elite think-tankers took their balls and ran away home, and rather than replace them with a new group representing the new spirit, Josh appeared to cave. The discussion has over time been shifted to politics, and more politics, and more politics, as though an activity that amounts to little more than group opposition research and spinning on behalf of the Democratic Party amounts to a serious interrogation and critique of what ails the United States and the world. Increasingly, TPM purveys the same MSM-style crap that prompted the blog revolution in the first place.
Remember when John Stewart called out and ridiculed Paul Begala and Tucker Carlson on Crossfire? But do you honestly think Election Central now has anything that marks it as superior in quality to the old Crossfire? Eric and Greg just post campaign news items that are typically available on cable news and elsewhere, based on campaign phone conferences hosted by the usual spin doctors. And the comments are a riot of spinning and counterspinning, spamming, spoofing, trolling and sock puppetry. It's fun and games, but 90% trash. There is nothing elevating or seriously educational about it. There is nothing to it that exceeds the standard set by rankly dishonest hacks like Begala and Carlson.
May 23, 2008 3:30 PM | Reply | Permalink
I'm not sure which blogs you were reading, but I've been reading TPM and other blogs for years, and this smacks of mythologizing. Blogs have always been full of shit--innuendo, insults, rumors, smears, etc. They will address things that MSM won't, true, but you have to dig through the garbage to get to it. Josh Marshall, of course, has always been better than that, but he's a rare blogger.
Dan, to be honest, you undermine yourself. I care about improving TPM Cafe and have posted about it in the past, with suggestions for improving the quality of the content. But I don't take you seriously. Your long, bitter comments come off like a cranky curmudgeon ranting about the colored folk who have moved into the neighborhood and destroyed it. You conflate the issues of editor blog quality, reader blog quality, reader comment quality, and diversity of subject matter, which are related but not identical. In the end, what I hear is a kind of primal whine, "Why won't the idiots just go away?"
You're actually making good points, but you're obscuring them with your bitter demands. The idiots are not going to be stuck in some kind of virtual concentration camp. When the community grows, so do the number of idiots. TPM wants an expanded community, and those of us who have joined the community as a result are glad for it. I urge you to focus instead on suggestions to help the best quality float to the top and to find space for some of the qualities that you appreciated about the old cafe without banishing what you do not like.
May 23, 2008 6:09 PM | Reply | Permalink
As I said in another part of the thread, Genghis, I would just like to see the portion of the site that contains editorially selected posts with comments separated from the portion of the site that contains user-generated posts. It's not about who gets "banished". I don't care whether the Reader Posts get banished to a new page, or the editorially selected content gets banished to a new page. And I fail to see why a TPM sponsored and managed site devoted to reader generated content would have to be a "concentration camp." All the issues you mention about working to improve the quality of reader generated content and the best tools for managing that content would still have to be addressed on that site, and I think we would all be happy to add our two cents.
And yes, I am sure I am being a cranky curmudgeon on this issue. But it strikes me that cranky curmudgeonliness is only a bad trait if one is complaining about an imaginary past that never was, and refusing to see that things are actually now much better. But in this case, I think it is important to insist that it actually was better before. Not perfect, or ideal, not even great. But better. So I'm in no mood to be apologetic about the idea that steps can be taken to recover what was very good about the previous incarnation of the site, and what is now in danger of being lost.
Democrats need at least a few places where they can discuss serious issues at a fairly high level. I hate to see one of the few places where that need was at least imperfectly filled being slowly killed off by commercialism, mass uniformization and editorial mismanagement. And I don't like seeing a vital community being destroyed. If you weren't part of that community, then it is not to be expected you can appreciate what it was. It was in part a rambunctious and choleric collection of crazy people and self-indulgent, prickly assholes like me. There were also a lot of very courteous and intelligent people. But the movable feast was held together into something worthwhile by the fact that there were a lot of important things to discuss, and a lot of the main posts were devoted to those important topics.
That's why none of the comments about whether or not I should have my own blog are either here or there. It's not about whether Dan K gets to express himself. It's about whether something that was of value to many people besides Dan K continues to survive and thrive. There is no way I can create a blog that would sustain the kind of community I'm talking about. Even if I didn't have a full-time job, I just couldn't do it.
May 23, 2008 7:42 PM | Reply | Permalink
Yes, Crossfire was a bit better quality. You know why? CNN was catering to a relatively small select audience there, believe or not. Better believe it to get the whole picture. Going for an ever larger market means going lower denominator.
What puzzles me is that someone of your intellectual capabilities did not see this in the blogosphere previously. Vox populi, open to all to give their two cents, is Neilsen ratings is Quantcast or Technorati, all the same thing.
Is MySpace an improvement over network TV entertainment, Dan?
On Andrew's thread, you ask that comments not be moderated, and you ask that editorial try to raise the level of content and not pander to audience. But they want large audience, I suspect they want large audience in order to have political effect. This is where the problem with "political activism" comes in. If you want to have political effect, you have to play to "the masses," largest possible audience.
A writer of elite-oriented content eventually gets tired of what ends up to be spam-like feedback and having to perform to keep it happy and goes in search of a more elite audience. Others like the notoreity. It's just the way it is. You want power of large audience, you have to flirt with lowest common denominator.
There is very strong implication in (intentional--Josh Marshall stated as much in several threads by Tom Wright as did management that it was an opportunity for people to try their hand at attracting the large main TPM audience) choice of software that rewards "most popular blogger." It is the "American Idol" model, that's very clear.
I think you want two different things and don't realize how small the audience is for what someone like you or I prefer. Face it, what you want is PBS, ever doomed to force feed spinach, and to be labeled liberal, egghead and elitist.
Did you miss the following Jan. 22 post by Josh Marshall?
http://talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/162969.php
I think you need to if you intend to continue bringing up what you have with the management here, reading it might help you better come up with counterargument. There is a spirited and interesting defense there of the noise, the circus, and the lowest common denominator as to political coverage, even a bit of love of it expressed, mho. What is important to note is that he clearly said he wasn't interested in force feeding spinach.
May 23, 2008 6:12 PM | Reply | Permalink
Thanks for the link.
(Was busy with other things back then in January).
Makes me wonder what TPM with its different parts will morph into after the election.
;-)
May 23, 2008 7:18 PM | Reply | Permalink
Thanks for the link.
(Was busy with other things back then in January).
Makes me wonder what TPM with its different parts will morph into after the election.
;-)
May 23, 2008 7:19 PM | Reply | Permalink
You're welcome. The following which I ran across recently from 5 years earlier is also interesting on topic:
"Tough Chat"
by Joshua Micah Marshall
The American Prospect, November 30, 2002
tho I freely admit I might be cherry picking to fit a narraitve here; all interested might want to read the entire article. :-)
May 23, 2008 9:17 PM | Reply | Permalink
I think you want two different things and don't realize how small the audience is for what someone like you or I prefer. Face it, what you want is PBS, ever doomed to force feed spinach, and to be labeled liberal, egghead and elitist.
I don't think it is entirely that, artappraiser, because one thing I always liked about this site was that there were more many more kinds of voices represented in TPM Cafe discussions than the stereotypical urbane, NPR-listening liberal. It's always been quite a diverse group.
But why not aspire to maintain at least a few locations for intellectual quality? I understand that Josh has always been interested in the horserace. You don't style you and your colleagues "muckrakers" if that is not a big part of what you are up to. But Josh also claimed to be interested in other things. He says in the post you cite:
Now, as you know from my blogging on Social Security, fiscal policy and lots about foreign policy, I'm very into the policy debates. But I think I can do both, be interested in both, walk and chew gum at the same time.
I don't know if the TPM Cafe statement of purpose is still posted anywhere, but I'm quite sure that the site did not profess itself to be all about the horserace. Maybe the Talking Points Memo mothership was mainly about the horserace; and maybe it's what TPM Muckraker and Election Central are all about. But I know that TPM Cafe was designed to be something different.
Josh complains about the "eat-your-spinach" crowd:
I think it's no surprise that the eat-your-spinach crowd has hugely invested in the idea that our more engaged politics of recent years has, is and will turn voters off from politics when in fact every measure -- voting, media viewership, small donor giving, etc. -- all show that precisely the opposite is the case.
But in his eagerness to affect himself a oh-so-not-snobbish man of the people, perhaps Josh is forgetting that there really is such a thing as the debasement of thought and discourse; there really is such a thing as ignorance and stupidity; there really is such a thing as emotions flaming out of their proper bounds and overcoming reason; and there really is such a thing as people grown accustomed only to demagogic raving in their public discourse making bad social choices, and as a result doing some very bad things like ... oh, I don't know ... killing a million people in Iraq.
The problem with the more superficial level of team sport partisan engagement is not that voters might be turned off as a result of all that sound and fury. It's that they might be energetically turned on, but that lacking enough intellectual nutrition in their diets they and their party end up doing a large number of rather stupid things when they get in power. Even if one is justifiably convinced that Democrats will be less stupid than Republicans, that still leaves room for us to be very, very, very stupid. When Democrats get themselves in charge they need good ideas about what to do, ideas besides, "Don't be as stupid as the Republicans."
And the problem isn't that voters are not passively accepting the dictates of intellectual "Mandarins". It's that they might not be doing enough thinking for themselves, and at a deep enough level, to make intelligent political decisions, or to push their candidates to advocate intelligent policies.
Yes, it is natural for all of us to enjoy the pleasures of partisanship, the pleasures of invective, the spectacle and drama of politics, and to "grasp the waterfall in motion", etc. But Josh is on the verge of turning these observations into a celebration of mass irrationality and sophistic anti-intellectualism. A lot of people, and not just "elitists" and "eggheads" and "mandarins", crave intellectual clarity and the opportunity to to improve their understanding. (In fact, I think that all people have these cravings, and will maintain them so long as they are not beaten down and educationally brutalized.) They appreciate the opportunity to retreat a bit from the chaotic hubbub, and to go some place where they can join others in trying to string three or four thoughts together in a rational sequence. They want to take a step back from their current positions and emotional commitments, and think about the moral and philosophical foundations of what they believe, about what their chief ends should be, about the appropriate relations of means to ends, about the coherence of their whole general approach, and about important bodies of historical or scientific knowledge that bear on their presuppositions.
It is enormously destructive of public intellectual health, and really snobbish, when people start disparaging intellectual discussion as something suitable only for elitists or mandarins, and treat calls for higher levels of discussion as mere snobbism. I taught philosophy for many years, and there was no way of basing reliable predictions of a student's philosophical interest on prior educational attainment or social class. Some students who had come from affluent homes, gone to excellent schools and performed well academically couldn't care less about philosophy, and thought it was just an nuisance that had nothing to do with what they were there to study. Others, sometimes from broken homes who could barely write at a 6th grade level, were intensely interested in philosophy. One of my most dedicated students was a guy of average intelligence and somewhat below average educational preparation, whose single father never wanted his son to go to college, because he hated "eggheads" and didn't want the son thinking that he was better than his father. But I also had Dean's list students who said, "Why do I have to learn this crap? What does this have to do with business administration, or computer science"
Intellection is not just for intellectuals. In a democratic society we have a mutual obligation to help everyone cultivate their minds and their understanding to the highest extent possible, just as we help them cultivate their health and their personal fortunes. It's not just about some sort of snob patrol telling everybody to eat their spinach and clean up their acts.
May 23, 2008 9:02 PM | Reply | Permalink
This is a great line of your comment for me personally, Dan:
I think you are getting at something there that drives me to keep coming back to forums like this to talk on "the meta" of them even though I often find it more depressing than fun and often get resentment as feedback. It's not just silly navel-gazing stuff to me, and you are somehow getting at why there. (And I give a shit about being labeled an elitist pig, because I know my general modus operandi when confronted with truly good discussion threads on topics that I have not educated myself on is to just read them and not feel my two cents is helpful to anyone.)
Yeah, well that was always a personal bone of contention and I was one of those that was a pain in the neck about it, always needling about it. The original said something vague in one sentence like "for discussion of news and politics with a center left perspective and for political activism." I've always been drawn to marketing, has been an interest all my life, and I like to know exactly what kind of product I am using, just the kinda gal I am, I guess, so crucify me. I get it if it's not my kinda place, and leave, but here is always intentionally vague, seems to me, and it always, always seemed to have totally unnecessary clashing of audience problems. I'd needle him about mission statement in Management threads, especially that one about activism. And I mostly got ignored except for around the time there was a great deal of vitriol developing over the Israel/Lebanon thing, then I think he saw that leaving "activism" vaguely defined was being misread by some users as meaning the site was for left of center "fighting" right of center. Finally on one thread he struggled with some of it, saying he meant the kind of activism like his Social Security coverage, and he didn't mean that conservatives and Republicans weren't welcome here, that they were welcome here. I got the impression that he thinks it's clear that the site is for "activist journalism" and not for strict partisanship. And I don't think that it's clear at all to most users, many think it's a site for Democrats to fight Republicans or other similar kinds of partisanship.
I vacillate betweent thinking these two different things:
1) from some things I've read on his "business plan," that he intentionally likes the serendipity of the interent and letting the audience grow in different directions organically, without much management direction or input, and then if things go too far and it turns into something he dislikes, he just cuts an audience off
2) he judges his audience by his massive amounts of email (there's a reason there's no comments on his own blog,) and he focuses on those emailers he is simpatico with, hence, he thinks his entire audience understands exactly what his all his sites are about and what he is trying to do, when in actuality, it's not clear to much of his audience at all.
I wasn't here at the founding of the Cafe but early on I paid a lot of attention to those commenters who were donors to creating the site.
Do you know $40,000 was raised to start the Cafe?
Some people showed themselves quite hungry for an alternative to what was out there, enough to donate $40K.
And I think that is where the "mission" was articulated, among that group of donors emailing Josh and whatever Josh posted about it on the main TPM page when he solicited the donations. Many used the term "high signal to noise ratio." They seemed to have been inspired to donate to a site that was to be an alternative to other forums available, and that signal-to-noise ratio seemed important to them as did the concept of civil and thoughtful discussion rather than the one-liner tit-for-tat comment threads of DKos. It didn't seem to matter as much that content was or was not elite, it was thoughtful, more complex and civil discussion is what most of them seemed to be expecting--content was something they seemed to be much more open about, almost like it was seconday. Josh's Discussion Table topic categories, if you recall that section, were actually quite narrow, all focused around politics one way or another, including a Democrats table and a Republican's table. On the other hand, the Reader Blog section was subtitled "Everything Under the Sun." Most of those original donor people seem to be long gone, given up, lost interest, whatever--one was even banned towards the end for getting so irritated about what the site ended up as, tho that was before this recent change.
Speaking of older members, did you see Purple State's May 8 blog post: "Insufferably Dull: The New TPMCafe"? There's a lot of the same stuff on it that is simply being repeated here on your thread.
Matter of fact, I go into the same history of "mission" or audience as this comment in more detail there, that comment can be found here on Purple State's thread.
May 23, 2008 10:55 PM | Reply | Permalink
Should also add that there might have been a clue in Matthew Yglesias leaving the site as to what kind of content was going to be pursued. He had his own tab when he was blogging here and I remember noting at the time that his subject matter range was almost always much much broader than that what was being offered on TPMCafe home page and even TPM. He did not leave with a job offer elsewhere, (The Atlantic gig came later,) he left here to go back to blogging on his own site for quite a few months.
May 23, 2008 11:19 PM | Reply | Permalink
It's no good for a democracy to give only Bread and Plays for the people while policy-discussions are held in closed circles.
There is nothing wrong with passion and feelings, but the democratic process needs also diskussions, ...or more to the point deliberations on policies. And for that a certain amount of facts and knowledge is of need. Maybe dull, but nevertheless needed. Without that, the election becomes a quest only for personal power (...and for the personal interests of them elected). Spinn and "news" about gaffes may be entertaining, but not exactly strengthening the democracy.
May 23, 2008 6:59 PM | Reply | Permalink
yup. good nutshell. :-)
May 23, 2008 11:02 PM | Reply | Permalink
Point taken. I rarely watched cable news prior to this election cycle, and now I am glued to the coverage. It is time to step back and recognize the enormous power media have in shaping public opinion with fictitious narratives and distorted reality. The public is manipulated into a frenzy. There is little or no international coverage or human interest stories. There is no investigative journalism or any attempt to educate the public about the daunting crises the next president will face.
May 23, 2008 11:53 AM | Reply | Permalink
Go ahead and post whatever you like, Dan. Nobody's stopping you. Many of us are obviously interested in other things.
May 23, 2008 12:21 PM | Reply | Permalink
Well suppose you could continue to pursue those interests on a separate TPM Reader Forum site that was kept separate from the TPM Cafe site. Each site would contain a link to the other site, but Reader Forum posts would not be cross-listed here at TPM Cafe unless they were truly exceptional and had been selected by Andrew or Josh for inclusion on the front page. Would that pose a problem?
May 23, 2008 12:50 PM | Reply | Permalink
That's a little more than presumptuous, Dan, to invite hrebendorf (and others with similar interests?) off this site when you could just as easily take your interests elsewhere. I think you understand the larger potential of this site and that's commendable. But it's not unexpected that progressives would be absorbed in the nomination battle. And I must point out that it is incumbet on the author af any particular post to choose his material for the appropriate audience and write it compellingly enough to gain readers. It is not incumbent upon readers to care.
May 23, 2008 1:21 PM | Reply | Permalink
I was thinking of it more in terms of dividing the two parts of the site in half, Ripper McCord, rather than booting one audience "off" the site, and leaving the other one "on". For example, if the choice were made to Turn TPM Cafe entirely over to the Reader Posts, and moving the other content over to a new site called something like "TPM Ideas and Issues Forum", that would accomplish the same thing. It's not about who owns TPM Cafe. It's about making sure that the existence of one kind of content on an overly crowded site doesn't diminish the quality of the other kind of content.
And, again, let me focus my worry where the quality of TPM Cafe is concerned. Some may be concerned about the tone or civility standards of the Reader Posts section. That's not my concern. Some might be concerned that the Reader Posts are too one-dimensional in their topic selection, and are themselves contributing to a dumbing down effect in our political culture. That is a very important interesting issue, and it's what I focussed on in my original post, but it is not the central issue where the quality of the TPM Cafe front page is concerned.
My central concern is that the quality of discussion on the TPM Cafe front page is declining, and that this appears to have something to do with deficiencies in the new technology - no edit function, no preview function, no indication of the number of new comments since the post was last visited, no highlighting of new comments, no view of the comment one is responding too above the composition box, etc. - and the new predominance of Reader Posts contributors on the site. My feeling is that the changes to the site have pulled in a very large, new group of readers who are not terribly interested in the front page content that is not directly addressed to electoral politics. This appears to have influenced the topic selection of some of the front page authors. It has also apparently chased a number of quality commenter off the site, since they can no longer find as many interesting posts to comment on or expect to see sustained discussion of those posts given the rapid progress of the blog roll. Less tangibly, it has influenced the atmosphere and character of the site, and made it less hospitable to sustained discussion of issues and ideas. TPM Cafe now has a slick, homogenized, noisy and overly commercialized "feel" that is not conducive to promoting reflection.
May 23, 2008 2:29 PM | Reply | Permalink
Thanks for the thoughtful reply, Dan K. You have several very valid points that probably should be addressed by Josh & Co. regarding the site technology and functionality. And your desire for a higher level of discourse cannot really be assailed. Perhaps a little time (days, if we're lucky) will solve part of the problem. Again, thanks for putting your thought and effort into the Cafe.
May 23, 2008 4:09 PM | Reply | Permalink
You're welcome. Thank you for taking the time to respond to what I wrote.
May 23, 2008 4:32 PM | Reply | Permalink
I have a better suggestion: start your own blog. Then make it vastly popular. Then do whatever editing pleases you.
May 23, 2008 2:24 PM | Reply | Permalink
They are already thinking somewhat along those lines, see Golis' May 8 thread on Reader Blog listing changes if you didn't:
http://tpmcafe.talkingpointsmemo.com/2008/05/08/some_quick_changes/
But mainly in effect what they are doing in his announcement there is having TPMCafe "take back" the hosting of the Reader Blogs, they are no longer equally hosted everywhere.
And if I recall from older management statesments, it was never intended that when one did a Reader Blog that it would go on all 3 sites, you were supposed to only have a choice of one extra besides TPMCafe. What they got from the techies was it went on all 3 and that bug only got fixed very recently.
Another thing that it might help your arguments to know is that I also recall Golis saying on one of Tom Wright's threads that when choosing the new software he and Josh did consider trying something where there would be separate sections that were "by invitation only," for more elite or more specialized discussion, in effect moderated by the poster, but that they decided against that because they didn't like the idea of that causing cliques to form, and they felt that one problem with the small audience of the Cafe was that there were too many cliques that were off-putting to the main audience of TPM. (Specifically, that they heard from readers that they didn't like the Cafe as it was, didn't use it, along the lines that it was cliquish and elitist.) And I think they might realize now after seeing some results with the system they did chose was that that thinking about how cliques might form or not was a little, er, faulty, shall we say?
Mho, it's not "cliques" that are the problem, it's how people get so personal with each other, forming personal friendships and enemies in the virtual rooms. It's problematic because with using pen names, not real names, it's all virtual and people are free to role play stuff they wouldn't do in real life. This adds another layer of social stuff going on that is off-putting to newbies just stopping because of the actual topic of discussion, from google or a link from another blog or whatever. And too often it's not "real" social stuff, it's "pretend" social stuff, because many people won't for many reasons put their own name behind it. Some argue that requiring real names is the solution. Obviously, I am someone who doesn't want to do that, I'd rather give up the getting personal about it all. I have friends and family already, what I am doing when I come to a site like this is escaping from that. Again, another "two different kind of audiences" problem, as I see it, and too few forums make clear what kind of audience they want, those coming for social play, or those coming for nonpersonal intellectual communication.
May 23, 2008 7:56 PM | Reply | Permalink
This is interesting stuff, and I did read Andrew's post when it was posted. I think extending the length of the blog roll was a good step. One reason I tended to avoid the Reader Posts before is that I was tired of searching through the recent archives to find posts that were only a couple of days old.
I really wouldn't be in favor of any kind of invitation only section. I want to hear all voices. I also don't want readers to be able to moderate the comments in their posts. I don't even want the invited front page posters to have that power, except in the case of comments that actually become threatening. I always found it very annoying when one of the regular front page posters would delete comments, or even his whole post, after people had put effort into writing those comments.
In my view you can do all the quality assurance you need simply by assuring the quality of the main posts. If Chalmers Johnson, or Michael Klare, or Anatol Lieven pens a really good post, then so long as you are attracting enough interesting readers to the site, you are guaranteed to get a number of really good comments, even if they are mixed in with the flame wars and cranks and occasional lunatics. I never had any issue with simply averting my eyes from the comments I didn't care to read or address. And you will attract enough interesting readers if you keep presenting quality content. But if editors don't do enough to assure quality posts, people will stop showing up.
May 23, 2008 9:24 PM | Reply | Permalink
I don't have much of a sense or even a gut feel about how the content at the site will change once this campaign season is over.
A desire to have dedicated space for non-electoral discussions has been expressed by quite a few denizens. That seems as though it should be a doable proposition, one that I would also welcome. I do not know whether management has announced decisions or plans on this. Josh or Andrew may have shared information on this which I missed during one of the several threads there have been on future directions for the site. I may not have been the only to miss that information if it was provided.
May 23, 2008 1:12 PM | Reply | Permalink
Well, looking at your list, I remember clearly in this recent week at least 5 of the subjects that have been written on by people in the reader blogs and I recommended two of them because they were well written. The others were pointless comments, not blog posts.
May 23, 2008 1:29 PM | Reply | Permalink
A symptom of a greater ill.
May 23, 2008 2:18 PM | Reply | Permalink
I second Genghis's characterization of Election Central -- a "shithole."
I'd only add that it's an echo chamber populated by tiresome, anti-intellectual chatterers all of whom are there to await, tongues hanging out, the infrequently provided bon mot.
May 23, 2008 2:47 PM | Reply | Permalink
You've clearly mastered the art of insult. Is that what makes you an intellectual?
May 23, 2008 3:16 PM | Reply | Permalink
No--it was the use of the French phrase "bon mot", complete with italic html coding.
May 23, 2008 3:55 PM | Reply | Permalink
Ha. That was actually my characterization of Dan's characterization. Though tiresome anti-intellectual chatterers do abound, there are, IMO, some really interesting people and excellent writers at EC. And there is great pleasure to be found in tossing around bon mots with those of the hanging tongues, as you call those who enjoy wit. As one who traffics in said mots yourself (hackneyed references to "echo chambers" notwithstanding), I'm surprised by your dismissal of them.
Unless your comment was sarcastic.
May 23, 2008 3:30 PM | Reply | Permalink
With Ellen it's hard to tell.
:)
I think she likes it that way. I do, too.
May 23, 2008 4:30 PM | Reply | Permalink
I like Ellen too. I just wish she would stick around for the repartee. She usually drops her stink bombs, rings the doorbell, and runs away.
May 23, 2008 4:58 PM | Reply | Permalink
Unfortunately, they're not bon mots, they're shots.
May 23, 2008 5:04 PM | Reply | Permalink
I don't get it.
It's like people are here to HELP DanK ruin his chances.
"Dan K: Pretty soon the place is just a drug den, with people puking in the bathrooms and hallways, crack whores giving handjobs in the corner and dealers beating up delinquent payers in the back alley and parking lot."
This is not great writing.
No wonder DanK fails at readership.
May 23, 2008 3:14 PM | Reply | Permalink
Quasar: "No wonder DanK fails at readership."
I see. So it's all about quantity in your eyes--defined as how many people recommend one's posts, one of only two visible measures presently available. (the other being number of comments to a denizen post)
I've been a fan of DanK's stuff going back for years now. While I find the tenor of some of his posts caustic enough possibly to turn away some who might otherwise agree with the gist of what he is saying, there is a difference as I see it between being caustic versus whining.
He's frustrated. So is Tom Wright, whose name I haven't seen here in a couple of weeks or so now. So is artappraiser. So are others.
This doesn't seem as though it should be an either/or situation. Steps which would do a lot to please a minority do not have to result in depriving the majority of what it likes about the site now. I am not hearing disagreement with the core of what DanK and others are asking for--a separate place where a minority of denizens who want something different from what the majority wants can also play and derive enjoyment from the site.
Whether management a) wants to do this and b) feels it can accommodate this request at some reasonable expenditure of resources given software and other constraints, are questions whose answers I am unclear about at this point. If Josh or Andrew sees this and has already provided that information, I missed it and would appreciate being pointed towards the answers.
DanK does not "fail at readership." How would you even know how many people read his, or anyone else's, comments? And, again, is quantity of readers all that matters? Does the level or nature or quality of satisfaction of those reading his stuff count for anything? He's not trying to win some popularity contest--he's perfectly clear about that. He just wants to be able to play in a different way than the current majority wants to.
May 23, 2008 9:12 PM | Reply | Permalink
And Ellen you misunderstood Genhgis's characterization.
May 23, 2008 3:16 PM | Reply | Permalink
Oh no, she didn't. Being nasty isn't the same thing as being stupid.
May 23, 2008 3:26 PM | Reply | Permalink
No one is obligated to fulfill your need for narcissistic supply, DanK.
No matter what cacophonous, histrionic, self pitying, derogatory or entitled fit you choose for attention.
We don't have to care.
May 23, 2008 3:28 PM | Reply | Permalink
Narcissistic supply of what?
But, of course, you don't have to care. Still, it is evident that there are at least a few other people like me who do care. We are asking Josh and Andrew to consider our concerns. What happens then is up to them.
May 23, 2008 4:07 PM | Reply | Permalink
Then why are you whining here?
May 23, 2008 4:11 PM | Reply | Permalink
Isn't this the appropriate place to whine? I thought the health of TPM Cafe would be a more than suitable topic for a Reader Post. I suppose I could just write an email to Josh and Andrew, but then they wouldn't benefit from reading the comments of others on my post, both pro and contra.
May 23, 2008 4:37 PM | Reply | Permalink
By your standards, apparently, long time users of the Wall Street Journal should shut up when Rupert Murdoch buys the paper and wants to change it, if you don't like what he's doing with it, stop whining, just stop reading and don't let Murdoch know why you stopped.
It is true that we are lucky in the current system to always have the final option of "starting your own blog," which is in effect what some Wall Street Journal editors and reporters actually did:
http://www.propublica.org/mission.html
But there is nothing wrong with DanK's method as well, it is more related to the question of how much is Josh Marshall like Rupert Murdoch, asking Josh, how far are you going to go in that direction? Nothing wrong with finding out whether the changes in one of your favorite publications are intentional and are not going away. Because then, just like the ProPublic crew, if you find out they are intentional, you might then start seriously thinking of starting an alternative.
May 23, 2008 5:02 PM | Reply | Permalink
The back-and-forth frothings between Clinton and Obama supporters are predictable, unoriginal, and a bore.
But that's what those who can't get beyond the specious horse-race focus -- which is all the MSM does -- do: it's knee-jerk, and they don't take the time to attempt to think of something else to contribute.
They are essentially sports jocks applying their RAH! RAH! RAH! "sports fans" frame of reference to politics -- where it DOES NOT belong, unless one is a flag lapel-pin-sniffing Republican.
All that happens, in the end, is that both candidates are smeared by members of their own party who sound exactly like Republican trolls in the nastiness and dishonesty of the attacks.
Either grow up or shut up.
May 23, 2008 4:52 PM | Reply | Permalink
Dan, your post is now #2 on the recommended list of the "hallucinating, pathetically isolated inmates at the Reader Posts nut farm". Does that officially make you part of the problem? :)
May 23, 2008 5:02 PM | Reply | Permalink
Yes. I am now full of disdain for myself.
May 23, 2008 6:08 PM | Reply | Permalink
Good start. Maybe you'll end up liking this place!
May 23, 2008 7:25 PM | Reply | Permalink
I get your point, DanK, but I agree with nedbalzer that this is (for the most part) a passing phenomenon. The mainstream media love and are stoking the primary conflict because it is so dramatic and exciting. How could people here be immune?
Many of us have been waiting for regime change since Nov. 7, 2000. Now, with the drama of the primary endgame, I admit I'm obsessed and happy to talk to other obsessives. I've found quite a few intelligent obsessives among the loonies and bullshitters . . .
May 23, 2008 5:27 PM | Reply | Permalink
Maybe you are right. I remember early on thinking I would devote some time to arrant politicking on behalf of my candidate, assuming that as per usual the core of the primary season would last all of two or three months before it was wrapped up. Then the race turned into to the permanent campaign death match from hell.
Since the technological changes took place at around the same time the campaign was really heating up, it is hard to know for sure what things will be like around here after November. But those changes do seem to have been rushed through, with insufficient testing or appreciation of the consequences.
May 23, 2008 6:17 PM | Reply | Permalink
Dan,
There's no doubt that having a separate discussion board for Election Central and having a few more separate boards for other areas is a good idea. Among other things, it would slow down the churn on the Recent Reader Posts list which would help new posts build an audience before they disappear. (I've advocated such things, too.)
But, ultimately, the quality of a discussion board depends on the quality of the posts. If you want to see more discussion of current events, or whatever, you need to spend the time to post something yourself. Asking for more work (editorial oversight) by Josh and the crew isn't realistic, IMO.
Build it and they will come. If they don't, then it's not meant to be, here.
May 23, 2008 5:58 PM | Reply | Permalink
The reason nobody blogs about these things is that there's nothing to say. The stories speak for themselves. What more can you say about the situation in Burma than "holy shit?"
May 23, 2008 8:19 PM | Reply | Permalink
Well, in fact, one consequence of the events in Myanmar is that they immediately brought out some calls for military intervention in the country, apparently to change its regime, under the rationale that the government of Myanmar had failed in its "responsibility to protect." This was the latest installment of a long-running debate in Democratic circles among those inclined toward more forceful interventionist policies of democratization by military means, and those inclined to limit the use of the military to self-defense against active threats and attacks. Of course, the Iraq war was the occasion of one of those debates. The internal conflict in the party is ongoing and has never really been resolved. The interventionists accept they made a bad call on Iraq, but haven't changed their basic orientation.
I may be wrong, but I believe this was an issue that actually was discussed here in a recent post, as part of the Book Club debate on Fareed Zakaria's book. But I may be confusing it with something else.
May 23, 2008 11:21 PM | Reply | Permalink
Wow.
Are you guys aware of how all of this sounds?
How terribly sad it is to see the site tainted by so many clearly inferior intellects...tsk, tsk.
If you have a suggestion for ways that Josh could enhance the site, make it. But, this crap about how unfortunate it is that your intellectual stimulation is being disturbed by the rabble in Election Central is laughable.
May 23, 2008 8:31 PM | Reply | Permalink
Look here at a 2006 discussion about the site....
Josh calls us stakeholders, sorry about the formatting but can not preview or edit...
Looking for Feedback: Ideas for a New Cafe
From: Cafe Management
By Andrew Golis | bio
Hello TPM friends. I'm helping Josh on an upgrade of TPM Cafe and we want to know what you think about some of the things we're working on.
The basics of this proposal is to focus the site around three core features:
1. A main page that integrates reader blogging.
2. Tables (TPM and user-created) that allow for distinct nodes of conversation.
3. An improved underlying social network.
Details after the break.
None of this is a major departure. TPM Cafe is designed to be a "collaborative discussion of politics, culture and public life, from a politically left perspective." But these revisions are intended as a response to your requests for an improved site so we want to know what you think of them.
As noted above, this current proposal would focus on three core features:
1. An integrated community blog with popular and recent reader posts presented on the front page in the side column (similar to Daily Kos and other community-based blogs). We want to bring the reader blogs closer to the rest of the conversation so that you can get more involved and have more readers for your ideas.
2. Conversation tables: some created by us (like America Abroad), the rest created by you. Each table would have the same functionality as the main table (the Coffee House): an administrator controlling posting privileges, designated front page writers, table members who can comment and basic readers.
This allows you the readers to create your own group blogs on the site and maintain whatever subject or geographically-based nodes of conversation you'd like. So that new tables can be integrated into the design, the tabs will be removed from the top of the site and the titles will be listed under "Your Tables" in the right hand column. Readers can add whatever tables they want to their list and we will sometimes feature particularly good tables (management-initiated or otherwise) in the site's header.
3. A much-improved social network. We already have individual profiles and internal messaging, but by allowing you to make friends and improving the profile page by including Your Tables, Your Posts and Your Comments on the same page (as opposed to on tabs), we hope to make the whole thing tighter and more fun.
--
So what do you think? Love it? Hate it? Anything to add? It's hard to squash a design into a few paragraphs, so what remains unclear?
This site is built around its community so we want to know what you think.
‹ Even More on Feedback and Design User Needs Help Creating a Blog Entry ›
Nov 27, 2006 -- 08:18:25 PM EST
On November 28, 2006 - 11:36am irishkg said:
You've got to be kidding, asking about our views on NEW features and ways to conduct various discussions. Have you read the basics about what does not work?
Have your read Cafe Mngt threads from last spring on to understand the views and issues of the vocal amongst the Cafe. (And I have no way to know if the vocal ones are even close to representative of the membership.)
I don't see how the shaky software and operations will support new features that will likely require technical kludges to add what you suggest.
The job Josh advertised is now closed and the winner is you?
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On November 28, 2006 - 11:54am irishkg said:
As to your questions to the multitudes I am struck by the "have fun" and interact with each other outside the public conversation.
I come here to talk about ideas, events, policy, politics and whatever else seems like an interesting conversation. I come to learn. I don't want to be amongst a bunch of people who think like me, where's the challenge in that?
I am not looking for friends but to find interesting people to talk with. I am not looking for an online social network. I am using this physical network to talk. I enjoy the online camaraderie but that is just what it is, nothing more.
This is like a Cafe in that there is all sorts of talk. Let's not stretch this thing too far. Cafes are full of people who know each other, we don't and I am not trying to.
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On November 28, 2006 - 2:17pm lally said:
The "have fun" aspect of the changes have also given me pause.
I posted on a site that had a small but very active community with politics and foriegn policy discussions drawing all sorts of opinions. The site was set up to be bipartisan.
Some of the best threads went into great depths of detail. Often, those discussions between political "enemies" evolved from sniping about political differences into real exchanges of knowledge and information. For instance, one of the best of them was all about Afghanistan and was active just before 9/11 happened.
Then a new feature called "The Bar" was introduced for discussions that disallowed politics or anything else of a serious nature. IMO, the site's quality started to erode from that point on. People had silly fun, insulted each other even more than they did on the political threads and after time, formed cliques. Eventually, the bar thread personality-based ethos (social networking) dominated the site and posters who had contributed to the more complex, serious (for lack of a better word) discussions drifted away.
Of course, it's entirely possible that there's a sort of natural evolution or devolution that occurs with sites of this nature. I've certainly made note of "old timers" bemoaning the loss of posters were valued contributers to the early Cafe and wonder if the changes are, in any case, inevitable.
However, I believe that encouraging more personal interchanges is detrimental and that's also why I don't post a bio, don't utilize the "private email" option and am reluctant to use the ratings system. (I should probably get over the latter prejudice. Maybe)
That said, online camaraderie is a positive and evolves under it's own steam without artificial structures designed to foster it.
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On November 28, 2006 - 2:37pm lally said:
LOL. Thanks for the "4" irishkg. You got me.
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On November 28, 2006 - 6:15pm artappraiser said:
Oh boy, I could have wrote that. (Are you me? :-) It's not impossible, as I discovered recently that with this software one could sign up for a new name and instead be assigned the name of another member.)
Did you also see it devolve into the group therapy thingie? Oh boy, what joy, especially when the more pyschologically troubled members start to ask for help and advice in private messages, and the teens start "sharing" things like the size of their penis, and the cliques and clubs form, they pyschoanalyze each comment accord to what they know about other members, some cliques go off and form their own site cause they are having a revolution against the rules, and then they come back because that clique petered out...
More seriously, on the big meta thing here, even beyond politics, there are plenty of "have fun and make pals" sites on the internet.
I was intially drawn to this site because I was looking for a place to discuss news and politics with grown-ups, of the type that like the type of articles on the site Arts & Letters Daily or similar. Yes, an elite group, not a democracy free-speech free-for-all, as there are plenty of those already available. I think lots of others that came about a year ago were looking for the same thing, an alternative to what was out there.
I don't need a family or friends, I already have some of those. The only problem is that they don't share my need for analyzing what is going on with news and politics with others.
But hey, I can vote with my feet if they decide to go for "fun club" here as well, and I doubt that my vote will matter, because as My Space shows, that's where the money is right now. Is that where you want to go here? If so, be kind and let us know.
I think a clear, front page statement about what political views are welcome here would really help here. Because I often see the conversations devolve in quality whenever someone not sufficently "liberal" contributes, a group who think they own the place who is under the impression that this is a coffee shop for liberals only attacks and the attacked then can't control attacking back. Granted, this goes in cycles, but without a clear statement, i.e., this is a site for liberals or it's not, it's for something else, it happens.
I think management should do a poll asking how many members and lurkers are here because they dislike Kos as a site and hate the "family" commenting at places like Huffington Post and Firedoglake and are looking for something DIFFERENT. That might give a clue.
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On November 28, 2006 - 7:04pm joshtpm said:
I think the site mixes both. But fundamentally I think it's about discussion. But the reason we started a thread about these potential changes is that we wanted to discuss them, not because we'd made up our mind. If the potential social networking additions would change the site in a way we don't think makes sense then let's discuss it. AA, you've been one of the longest-standing and most active contributors to this site. and i know youve spent a ton of time at the cafe management table trying to improve things. but can we avoid some of the hyperbole? Fox News and the Khmer Rouge? Please. We're asking for suggestions. Not flames.
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On November 28, 2006 - 8:02pm artappraiser said:
Well to be honest, if I am "flaming" it's because I am disappointed. The site started out with a mix of views, which is what I was looking for. Perhaps I was naive thinking that this would be a site where liberal, centrist and right ideas could mix, not another liberal pap producer like most of the rest of the blogosphere. I thought that because you yourself on TPM link to DLC sites and invite mainstream and even conservative dems to contribute here, some who seem to be your acquaintances, and Kate or you set up both "Republican" and "Democrat" discussion tables.
On that basis, I used to challenge liberals who said "we need to do this" or "we need to do that" with the question" "who is we?" I no longer bother to do that. In commenting and rating, it's become clear that the liberal/progressive view is in charge here, that is the "we" they are talking about, and that any other ideas are tolerated at the pleasure of that crowd. It was a gradual thing, where non-liberals started to gravitate to Yglesias's threads only because his "reality-based" balance did not appeal, and then, when he left, lots of those commenters did too.
I'll give you this: you deserve a great deal of credit in that you still manage to scavenge up those non-liberals willing to participate, and I greedily await those posts as a challenge to my own pre-conceptions. It's amazing that you can do so with the reception they receive. The comments on the recent post by James Carville are a perfect example. No one in their right mind would want to stick around and converse with such a reception. I have absolutely no interest in reading the kind of "activists" who want to rant against James Carville and vent anger because he doesn't meet some litmus test as a liberal. Rather, what I looked forward to on this site in the past was reading intelligent discussions between James Carville and others. I see that slipping away, hence, I merely come here now to look at what the people who I already know to be original thinkers have to say and ignore the rest.
This is the main reason I have consistently requested more strict directions from management on the site vision and on use of ratings and the like. It's not because I am a software nerd. I am looking for a product that is still not being offered where liberal orthodoxy does not dominate the discussion.
In the end, I admit I'm ambivalent: more's the pity for the site in my mind, but not so bad for me as I am much less addicted to the place and get more high-quality print reading done.
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On November 28, 2006 - 8:17pm artappraiser said:
p.s. Is not the Fox news model inextricably mixing analysis and activism? News used to be as rigidly separated from opinion and agenda as possible, that was the program for the radical new mid-20th century of a "profession" of "journalism." Fox started it, and the blogosphere continues it for the most part, they all have a "slant" according to agenda, it's back to the 19thcentury, no separation.
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On November 28, 2006 - 9:36pm sphealey said:
=== you still manage to scavenge up those non-liberals willing to participate, and I greedily await those posts as a challenge to my own pre-conceptions. It's amazing that you can do so with the reception they receive. The comments on the recent post by James Carville are a perfect example. No one in their right mind would want to stick around and converse with such a reception. ===
Interesting observation. My personal reaction was the exact opposite: I got very tired, very quickly, of what felt like the "name" conservatives and DLCers delivering drive-by spankings which basically amounted to "if you don't live/work in Washington DC, you have no right to an opinion on politics. Shut up and send us your checks". And then refusing to respond to any of the very well-written, very polite (if not respectful), very thoughtful criticims of their work that were posted in response.
I felt then (and now) that the world really doesn't need another Washington Post-type institution where betters deliver lectures to inferiors. One of the more serious problems with the Democratic Party (again IMHO) is that with the unions essentially gone it has lost all mechanism for feedback from the real world past Tyson's Corner. This site seemed as if it might be headed in a different, more inclusive direction.
Admittedly many of those very good early commentators have since left. A regular essayist of Ygleasis' quality (but with an easier-to-spell name) is also sorely missed.
sPh
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On November 29, 2006 - 4:00am artappraiser said:
On November 29, 2006 - 12:58am Dan K said:
....Frankly, I have lately come to doubt the overall honesty and intellectual integrity of the site. Again, I'm sorry to have to say this, but that's how I feel. Lately, TPM Cafe strikes me as though it were designed more to propagandize readers, to "sell" a certain narrow political perspective, to encourage co-dependent group think, and to manufacture and discipline a partisan message - rather than to foster open, frank and imaginative debate across a range of issues and perspectives....
Sounds remarkably similar to the Fox News model to me.
One current example: Republican is used as a smear label here against a member who calls himself a progressive libertarian not interested in partisanship in his user bio. and who 90% of the time offers very intriguing and thoughtful commentary. This kind of reply to someone like him is common here and is often either rewarded by high ratings or at minimum endorsed by lack of ratings or any objection. If a liberal was treated like that, they would be all kinds of reactions. It's not at all clear that the participation of people like Gettysburg is valued here, rather he is given the distinction of tolerated pet troll by many. And he's not even conservative by any reasonable reality-based defintion of the term. It's not at all clear whether this is a management sanctioned attitude, because it's not been prominently posted one way or another, just discussed in subtle ways hidden away in 200-comment-long threads on "appropriate behavior" that most havent' read.
A good summary point is lally's statement below, even though he/she is leery of the idea of saying clearly who is welcome here:
....Guidlines are good things and should be simple, clear and easily accessed from the front page. I don't even know what behavior gets a poster "transhumaned".
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On November 29, 2006 - 7:53am cscs said:
I'm not going to argue on the validity of your perceptions of TPMC -- but I'll go on the record saying I disagree, that not everyone here agrees with you on this point.
At the least, I think you're taking the exceptions and making them seem like the rule. For every "disrepectful" comment to James Carville and Gettysburg, there are plenty of comments saying that this place is one of, if not the only, place in the blogosphere that allows for different points of view and civil discourse. (And, personally, I find the idea that Media Celebrity and Democratic Consultant James Carville is somehow going to be hurt by harsh criticism here laughable. Maybe he will be, but then maybe he's just not cut out for the brave new world of blogging, where one has to actually face the public. Other traditional media people have withered online as well.)
You're looking for some mechanism, through Josh's edicts or FAQs or ratings, to control everyone's behavior, to get them to act in whatever manner you personally deem "civil." That's never going to happen. We're just silly humans. Someone is always going to call Gettysburg a troll for one of his comments.
We need to keep the 80/20 rule in mind, and, to me, this place hits that mark pretty darn well.
Dissent Protects Democracy.
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On November 28, 2006 - 9:37pm lally said:
"Did you also see it devolve into the group therapy thingie? Oh boy, what joy, especially when the more pyschologically troubled members start to ask for help and advice in private messages, and the teens start "sharing" things like the size of their penis, and the cliques and clubs form, they pyschoanalyze each comment accord to what they know about other members, some cliques go off and form their own site cause they are having a revolution against the rules, and then they come back because that clique petered out..."
At the time I was a regular, the private email option wasn't enabled.Folks rarely asked for help or advice but did use the Bar to discuss or announce personal joys and/or tragedies. Penis comments did come up, usually in the context of size claims and estimates or suggestions and invitations. Age wasn't a factor.
Checking back much later, I noticed the clique behavior almost exactly as you describe it(!), ie huffing off to a new site, etc. By that point, the private email option was enabled and from what I could tell, things had devolved into such an ugly scene that some posters were permanently banned.
Also in a more serious vein, I'm not a big fan of announcing who is or isn't welcome here. It's obvious what TPM is about. Those who have opposing poitical ideas come here because they like to mix it up. Sure there is some piling on, but, IMO that's often a function of newness to the site and dissipates with time. In comparison to that "other place," this Cafe is High Tea.
When it comes to Kos or any of the other sites mentioned, I use them as sources of information and only rarely read the comments. Isn't the "family" nature of the commentary an inevitable by-product of blogs that allow comments?
Guidlines are good things and should be simple, clear and easily accessed from the front page. I don't even know what behavior gets a poster "transhumaned".
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On November 28, 2006 - 3:03pm Andrew Golis said:
That makes sense to me. Clearly the social tools aren't the most essential aspect of the site and the conversation is more important.
Do you think having the option of the improved social network underlying the site will be detrimental to that primary use?
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On November 28, 2006 - 3:29pm irishkg said:
Where have you read that social networking is important to members?
Why in the total blog world is social networking best incorporated here?
Interaction happens during the discussion of the topic at hand. Interaction is not, in my view, an end in itself, a goal of my participation here. I don't interact to get interaction pleasure (oh the ways this could be read) but to talk with others about a subject. Is that clearer?
Andrew, when I read of you and others starting and using online forums to create a social network otherwise unavailable at Harvard I feel sorry for all of you. Back in the day we talked in person. Andrew I believe that your Harvard solution to a perseived social deficit has nothing to do with what Josh intended to be a place to discuss ideas and issues.
To you, Josh and the rest of the folks in charge fix the existing software. Once the software works then set about making it more efficient for users. Then spend time and money on making it more effective as a place for discussions. It's about working priorities in the order of critical to nice to have.
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On November 28, 2006 - 5:03pm Andrew Golis said:
To be clear, this has nothing to do with the things I did when I was in school. That project was a blog, pure and simple. The "social network" function we're discussing here is simply an improvement of that which already exists.
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On November 28, 2006 - 5:18pm irishkg said:
I was trying to understand your outlook since I have not read of concerns with social networking in the Cafe. I was guessing that you were looking to bring something from your past forward.
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On November 28, 2006 - 6:23pm artappraiser said:
irish, some of what you are saying relates to what has always bothered me in Josh Marshall's initial description of the site (I dunno if it is still here somewhere.) It said the site was for discussion of news and politics but was also for "activism." Fortunately for people with preferences like mine, the activism thing never appeared much here. But I think that the two are at odds--the kind of interaction we crave, a challenge to thinking and ideas and help analyzing news, and "activism." Activism means pushing to form clubs and cliques of like minded individuals to push a point of view and to get things accomplished. Isn't that sorta like the Fox News model? Or the Khmer Rouge indoctrination sessions after toiling in the fields? Or the pep rally in high school? :-)
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On November 28, 2006 - 7:27pm irishkg said:
Here's what Josh says about activism in ABOUT [TPMCafe]
TPMCafe is a public meeting place to read about and discuss politics, culture and public life in the United States....
TPMCafe was launched as a companion site to TPM on May 31st, 2005 to provide a forum for commentary, discussion, collaborative journalism and activism.
Activism was discussed when viviance initiated the Cafe Charter.
Perhaps we can get agreement on a version you described during that Cafe Charter discussion:
And that the TPMCafe theme is a coffee house, I would tend to think that it was meant to accomodate mostly discussion, discussion that might bear seeds for activism.
Josh, Andrew, whomever:
How about describing the Cafe as a place to discuss ideas [i.e., ideas, news, analysis, and so on] that may become a springboard for activism. The Cafe remains a place of ideas. Those who want to talk ideas have a forum. Those who want activism have a place to think about ideas that form the foundation of activism. Short and sweet: the Cafe is talking about ideas, while advocacy for action happens in ________.
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On November 28, 2006 - 9:27pm Devon said:
On activism: I see your point at a logistical level, that a more activist bent encourages more conformity. But there is no logical necessity that the two will go together, and I don't think that they need to here. My impression is that - well, I share with you a sense that things have gone a little too far in the direction of uniform outrage than I'd like, but I'd say debate still predominates.
I agree with most of the people I regard as central to the site about the irrelevance of social stuff... but then again, I wonder if the circle I think of as at the center mightn't be one of many. I won't use that stuff, but perhaps others will. Will I notice if they do? Probably not. So what's the big deal?
Anyway, nothing's changed: I share your feelings, but to a lesser degree!
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On November 28, 2006 - 7:06pm joshtpm said:
irish, i'm not sure what you accomplish by such an ad hominem response to someone i've hired to help work on the site. What did that accomplish exactly? I get your point. You don't think the social networking features are something we need at this site. You might be right. We may not add that. But why get in his face?
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On November 28, 2006 - 7:55pm irishkg said:
Josh you asked why I got in Andrew's face. Well, I responded with some passion and persistence because the subject and approach got my attention and I had the time. I am one voice and have no presumption that I am "right."
Based on all sorts of professional experience I saw the classic new person's entrance onto the scene to make everything better. Andrew wanted to start with a clean slate which means that everything I and others have been saying in other threads was a waste. Andrew described new/expanded features when a myriad of technical issues have kept members out or unable to post, etc.
Andrew - I did not intend to be personal. I did want to express myself on the ideas you presented for consideration. Clearly you and Josh feel I was personal. Sorry.
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On November 28, 2006 - 8:09pm joshtpm said:
Irish, There's no need for an apology. And I can understand the proposed changes coming off that way. But that's the not intent. And I'm still the ultimate editor of the site. So that's not going to happen. There's a reason why I asked Andrew to start a discussion about this with the regulars at Cafe Management -- because the folks here are the stakeholders in this site. I appreciate your all sticking with the site and I understand the frustration of all the technical problems. I'm sorry if there was a misunderstanding. But please have confidence in the editorial management that I assume/hope has kept you here this long even under imperfect circumstances.
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On November 28, 2006 - 9:01pm irishkg said:
Josh I continue to come because the discussions are interesting.
In the world of football offensive linemen are only noticed when they do something wrong. Right now the software is the offensive lineman who is not playing particularly well so we are watching every move. This can change and the software can go back to toiling away in the obscurity of the skillful offensive line.
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On November 28, 2006 - 12:01pm sphealey said:
Sorry to say I don't think you are going to get many comments. There have been at least half-a-dozen topics in the last 6 months where your best and most committed members have discussed bugs, problems, feature requests, community strategy, etc. All have been ignored, with no action taken and zero feedback to the community. The problem is that even the most dedicated will put up with that for a certain amount of time, but will eventually reach a tipping point and check out. Two weeks ago I predicted that Josh had 1/2 Friedman (12 weeks) to get this site back under control or lose it; I suspect I may have been optimistic in that assessment.
That said, if you look at the history of software (and web sites/web logs for that matter) you will most likely find that NONE of the successful ones were designed by committee, nor by accumulating feature requests. Zero. What is needed first and foremost is a solid vision of what is to be done and why, and second is a good solid systems architect who can translate that vision into reality (and also explain to the visioneer what cannot be done {within constraints, and also on an absolute basis}). You guys started out OK two years ago, but you have lost your way. And Josh talking about opening up 2-3 more sites in 2007 isn't a good sign.
sPh
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On November 28, 2006 - 12:37pm irishkg said:
Sorry to say I don't think you are going to get many comments.
The first clue that there won't be many comments from members is the 15 hour gap between the original post and the first comment (8pm Monday until 11am Tuesday)!!
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On November 28, 2006 - 3:06pm Andrew Golis said:
Josh realizes that we weren't able to respond to community concerns (both just talking in comments like this and with technical solutions). That's why we're putting more resources and time into the site in an effort to fix it.
Please don't give up on us now, right when we finally have the ability to get things right!
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On November 28, 2006 - 3:59pm irishkg said:
I look forward to the proof on my screen: "we finally have the ability to get things right"
Meantime please read the previous threads. After digesting them, then come back with the technical and functional ideas and plans.
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On November 28, 2006 - 4:12pm joshtpm said:
Let me butt in here.
First, the suggestions and requests for glitch fixes haven't been ignored. What's happened is that you have a company that runs three major traffic sites with three employees who are responsible for editorial content, business and tech. All of it. In most cases we simply have not had the resources -- read the money -- to pay the consultants who run the site to make the requested changes or to fix the bugs. We're not part of a big corporation. And we don't have big foundation grants keeping us afloat like a lot of other similar sites. We exist entirely in the market economy. In some cases, I've been quite dissatisfied that they've failed to fix things we asked them to fix or introduced new bugs in the process of making fixes. A lot of stuff got screwed up in various changes we made on the site to keep the site online. But that's for another conversation.
We now have more resources to fix these problems and tech help too. We've brought Andrew on staff to help shepard that along. As Andrew has said, our first priority is to fix the bugs. But the nature of the investment in making the improvements creates a logic for making important changes at the same time. If we think this or that change to the site are important to make, it doesn't make sense to spend the money we now have on debugging sections of the site we're going to change.
So I can understand where it seems like putting the cart before the horse. But there's a strong logic to it.
As for sphealey's pessimistic view of the site, I'm sorry you feel that way. I've been frustrated that certain things about the site haven't gotten fixed or improved as quickly as I would have liked. And the site has been without an employee dedicated exclusively to the site for almost six months now. And that's hurt a lot. All told though I'm still happy with what we've accomplished and made possible here at TPMCafe. If you've lost patience, there are certainly other community sites to choose from. But for those who think we've started something special here and that it can be improved I invite you to work with us to make it what it can become.
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On November 28, 2006 - 4:50pm irishkg said:
Josh -- I don't expect perfection or a site with unlimited functionality. I don't assume that you have a bottomless budget. I do believe that I and other members have tried to make the site better. We also rant in frustration.
You/staff could help yourself if you took advantage of your publishing forum to communicate to the multitudes. Examples that would help you and members: a front page note when staff are away because they are doing real life things like a new baby; a front page note when the site is very shaky and it will be a few days/weeks before it can be addressed; a front page note that different members are seeing different problems because of whatever; a front page plea to not send email to the Cafe staff for a while because it cannot be answered; a front page notes with dates for planned changes and so on.
I appreciate the technically proficient here helping the less than proficient among us. They have tried to explain to the rest of us what might be causing the problems some/all were facing. I found it useful to understanding the challenge of site software and architecture.
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On November 28, 2006 - 4:56pm joshtpm said:
Irish, some of these points are really good ideas. Some are possible, some aren't. I think you'll see that we've actually done some of these things you've suggested already.
In any case, I think the only relevant point for me to make is the problems with TPMCafe have been a personal frustration of mine for a long time. And that I've just hired an employee for the specific purpose of fixing the problems with TPMCafe, getting the site the personal focus and attention that just isn't possible from a staffer who's also responsible for TPM or Muckraker.
I asked Andrew to come up with ideas for ways to revitalize the site and I asked them to run them by the regular readers. My aim in hiring Andrew was to make sure that the site gets fixed and that it gets the attention that it deserves going forward. To the extent that it was unclear from what Andrew wrote yesterday, I hope it's clear now that fixing the existing bugs is our top and first priority.
So there it is. I won't ask any more from then to judge us on what we produce from here on out. But I would ask that you focus on what we do now.
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On November 29, 2006 - 11:35am viviane said:
Some of these points are really good ideas. Some are possible, some aren't.
Could you let us know which things are possible and which aren't? I know it's a bit time consuming, but it would eliminate a lot of the frustration on the denizen side.
That way, we could know that our suggestions have been heard but aren't feasible right now. Such a "pipeline" or "to-do list" would do a lot to mitigate the sense that we keep trying to reinvent the wheel. Also, we'd stop asking if we knew which things we can't have!
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On November 29, 2006 - 6:11pm joshtpm said:
In a word, Yes.
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On November 28, 2006 - 12:21pm jhaber said:
First, yes, I'd be concerned that we address glitches first. Second, yes, it doesn't seem that in touch with site feedback to date.
Some have criticized the distinction between two kinds of user-initiated posts (among reader blogs and discussion tables) or simply wondered what the distinction is for. The proposal would appear to perpetuate the division by combining discussion posts with other section areas rather than combining reader contributions. Some have also worried that too many discusson posts don't provoke discussion, even with moderation, so giving them greater prominence and frequency raises quality issues.
Some have found the navigation way too complex, with several kinds of tabs and menu bars; with some sections by topic and others not; with the role of the Coffee House, as neither quite a catch-all for what's left, not quite featured posts, and indeed not quite defined, but certainly as an arbitrary division of the home page that keeps some posts up too long and excludes others; and some have criticized the arbitrary right column choices, which appear selective rather than simply the latest, requiring one to hunt to see everything. I'm not sure, but a further division into a proliferation of discussion topics might exacerbate any or all of these.
Some had asked that a tab, brief lift of recent items, or other navigation feature as in the old design make sure that reader blogs are accessible from the home page at all times. (And indeed a tab has been restored.) However, I'm not sure there's been that much demand for them to play a more central role, they're rarely commented on, they vanish quickly, and obviously many come here for their favorite columnists instead. (There are too darn many amateur blog sites and news groups as it is.)
Mostly, however, it sounds like the same as the present structure, plus easier ways to initiate direct contact with other members. Has anyone asked for that? Is the private message used much? At least one member has already expressed concern for privacy in contacts.
In sum, I fear too much clutter, a shift away from TPM's experts to a collection of news group, and too little attention to navigation issues and bugs/glitches that come up repeatedly and persist. I don't wish to dismiss the changes outright, especially as I'm havnig trouble envisioning them clear, but is it the wisest use of staff time?
John
http://www.haberarts.com/
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On November 28, 2006 - 3:12pm Andrew Golis said:
The glitches are obviously issue #1. We have a long list and are trying to fix them as quickly as possible. However, we're limited by the current system (we're stretching this platform beyond where the code can coherently go) and we're thinking about making a complete fresh start. I agree that the navigation is too complex. Our hope w/ this redesign would be to tighten up the user interface significantly. I also agree that the distinction between user-posts and discussion tables feels arbitrary, and under this conception the discussion tables would simply be folded into the general table function along w/ America Abroad and the rest. Sorry that it's hard to be clear. Is there anything in particular that's unclear? I'll try to re-explain.
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On November 28, 2006 - 12:29pm cscs said:
I hate to do this, but I have to concur with the others -- there are already posts in Cafe Management re: what we'd like to see. No need for another. More importantly, I think any new functionality should be held off until you can demonstrate you can fix what's wrong right now. New functionality means new bugs, and there's already enough problems with the basic functionality of this site.
I said "I hate to do this," because I don't want to seem unappreciative that Josh wants to upgrade TPMCafe. I am.
But we have two posts in Management right now re: everything that's wrong with the site ("Glitches..."), and it just doesn't seem like the right time to talk about new features. I'd like to think we can walk and chew gum, but so far that hasn't happened.
All that said, here's some general reactions to the above proposals:
- Improving the Reader Blogs is needed. Recommended posts that go to the top, or even the Front Page, would be great.
- The Discussion Tables need work. We've gotten some improvement on the main Discussion page, and somewhere there's a Cafe Mgmt post about what we'd also like to see.
- I think the idea of multiple "Conversation Tables" is risky -- the big problem right now is we have too many categories.
Personally, I'd rather see tags incorporated into the site, rather than more categories of Tables. With tags, we can all categorize our own content however we want. If anything, I'd like to see the ability for me to tag OTHER people's content, so I can include other posts in my own categorization scheme.
- Finally, I'm not so sure about the "social networking" thing, and I'm wary of modelling this site after Daily Kos. Yes, this is a community, but it's quite different from DKos. There's no Sunday morning flower blogging here. If I want to develop a social network, I'll do it at DKos. If I want to find people to meet up with in real life, again, DKos.
This community is about ideas, and thinking. I come here to read what people smarter than me have to say. (And that's the users here, in addition to the Front Pagers.) Maybe I learn something new, or maybe it confirms what I already know. Or allows me to say it better. But it's about the ideas. I would keep that as the driver of whatever vision you have in developing the new features of TPMCafe.
Dissent Protects Democracy.
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On November 28, 2006 - 1:06pm irishkg said:
For those interested in the perspective Andrew brings:
TPMCafe Biography: grew up in California, studied American political history and social theory at Harvard College ('06), and currently shuttles between New York and Berkeley. He is a political organizer, a "new media" enthusiast, and PBS fanatic. He likes meeting new people, so email him.
From Wikipedia: In 2005, a progressive weblog .... was launched by Andrew Golis at Harvard University. The site ... covers a wide range of topics ranging from campus debates to international affairs, and was one of the earliest sources to break the news of Larry Summers' resignation as president of Harvard...
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On November 28, 2006 - 1:21pm sphealey said:
That is a good background for making the crucial decision between 2-tier (database centric; my preference based on bitter experience) and 2.5/3 tier (current website practice {fad?}) in the fundamental architecture of a high-volume site.
sPh
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On November 28, 2006 - 4:23pm joshtpm said:
What's the point of a comment like this?
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On November 28, 2006 - 3:15pm Andrew Golis said:
Hey, that's me! Happy to answer any and all questions.
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On November 28, 2006 - 1:52pm Devon said:
Is it safe to assume that the plan is to roll out a new iteration of the site that takes into account the various glitches brought up in other Cafe Management threads, and also to do some of these new things?
The social networking stuff, CS is probably right, matters little. My sense is that this is a community primarily of ideas, and that people come here to talk, and not nec. to build more robust relationships than those formed on the threads.
I'm beginning to realize that some of the social components are important, to me, though - in particular, I'd like to have ratings back on my comments page. I realize now that they're gone that I use them to gauge my participation here - whether it has any point, really. Without seeing some evidence of that, I'm posting less.
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On November 28, 2006 - 2:26pm irishkg said:
I don't view the rating system as social in nature. I like the ratings because it tells me if at least someone read what I wrote and thought enough of it (good or bad) to rate it. Rating also continues to be a quick way of saying I hear you without writing the words and cluttering up the thread.
I too want the cumulative rating next to each of my commnets on MY Account page.
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On November 28, 2006 - 3:21pm Andrew Golis said:
Absolutely the new iteration of the site would seek to squash all of our bugs by creating a new code base.
We absolutely understand that glitches and bugs are job #1 but we also know that the site is being held back by some of its basic architecture (the separation of reader blogs from general content, the awkward design of the tables).
In terms of the social network, I think that you're right that it needs to focus on people's intellectual selves, not their "personal" selves. Probably a better way of explaining it would be an improved internal intellectual network. More on this in a new post above.
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On November 28, 2006 - 6:33pm artappraiser said:
Are you going to police the system according to whatever vision of the site ends up being "the one"? That means reading most of the threads.
Otherwise, to prevent morphing of the site into something that drives away the type of contributors and active members that you desire, if you plan to continue to have the community do it, you need back a fully functional rating system.
That means being able to see ratings on a user's comments page. It would also be a very good idea to be able to see ratings given by a member, so others can police for abuse. Also the hidden comments, those rated below one, need to be collected in one place for trusted members to review them.
I'd actually prefer toughly enforced editing and moderation by actual persons like is done on Juan Cole's site if I had my druthers. But it's tough to find someone willing to do such a lousy job, especially with a big site. If you are going to rely on the community to do it, first you need a clear statement about what kind of site this is and who and what is welcome here, one that people can point to. Second, you need to give them full tools to do it, the equivalent of the full Scoop Trusted User system, the best invented so far. Third, you need to state rules for ratings and use of ratings.
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On November 28, 2006 - 6:39pm artappraiser said:
I agree with irishkg that step one is getting any kind of functioning system.
Many will not bother to contribute quality thoughtful content that takes time if their comments are not visible to lurkers (the vast majority that look at this site) and to certain members for god knows what reason unrelated to ratings. (See the first "Glitch" thread for particulars.)
I am sure all of your software problems have deterred good fresh blood from signing up and participating. Some of the best commenters on a certain topic are often very unsavvy about using the internet as they have been busy learning and doing other things in their lives.
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On November 28, 2006 - 7:12pm cscs said:
Thanks to Josh and Andrew for further clarification, here and in the subsequent post.
Here's something to consider, something we've discussed before. Part of the problem with the site today is that it's too hard to find things. I think there are three kinds of users here: one that just posts on the front page and doesn't care about anything else, one that gets into these meta-discussions in Cafe Management (and the other Discussion Tables), and a third that would LIKE to participate in these discussions, but just doesn't know about them.
So, I suggest spending some time on figuring how to make people aware there are Reader Blogs, there are Discussion Tables, etc. Like I said, we've already touched on some ideas in previous posts (putting the top Rec'd Reader Blog on the front page, putting the latest Discussion Post on the front page, etc).
Also, what about putting a link to this post on the Front Page, with a one-liner, something about "help determine the next stage of this site" (but worded better...)? While we old-timers know what we like/dislike/want-to-improve, this discussion would definitely be helped by some users new to TPMCafe. They might see things we can't.
Dissent Protects Democracy.
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On November 29, 2006 - 1:05am viviane said:
A few thoughts on the proposed changes…
1. I agree that it would be nice to have the good Reader Blog posts be more integrated, more prominent. A couple of concerns, though. As the site population has grown, we’ve gotten lots of turnover on the current Reader Blog home page. I don’t want to see the same kind of turnover on the front page. Instead, would it be possible to have a sidebar or section on the front page that features RECOMMENDED Reader Blogs? That would help separate the wheat from the chaff, if you will, yet still spotlight Reader Blogs as a whole. (It would also give us Café denizens an incentive to write well!)
2. I’m unsure of what is meant by a “conversation table.” Does this mean integrating the current Discussion Tables with the front page Group Blogs? That would streamline things, I suppose.
At the same time, I’m chary of eliminating the denizen vs. invited guest distinction, though I’m not sure why. Also, I enjoy the mishmash of topics that usually grace the front page, if only because I read things that I might not otherwise search out. I don't want to lose that.
Also, one of the main requests in the past was to limit the number of tables. Is that being abandoned?
Architecturally, I’ve never really understood the difference between The Coffee House and the other front page, group blogs. Eliminating that confusion would be wonderfully helpful. Unless there are substantive differences…?
3. Like others, I don’t see a huge advantage with new social/intellectual networking tools. I would like to have all of my posts (whether blog or discussion table) show up in one place. I would also like to see the aggregate ratings on my comments. And I would like to be able to track a thread even if I haven’t commented on it.
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On November 29, 2006 - 1:18am viviane said:
Here are some of our previous requests, many articulated initially in this User Requests thread and then added to in Suggestions Wanted.
There have already been some huge improvements to the Discussion Table interface. But here's a summary of the other main points, all of which I endorse.
1. Cafe pipeline -- please let us know what's going on. If there are features that aren't happening, tell us that.
2. Bring back Recommended Reader Blogs! This has happened to some extent, but I'd like to see the creme de la creme gathered in one place.
3. Use a five-point rating scale (1-5), rather than the current four-point one. That allows a "neutral" rating, which is especially helpful if one wants to compensate for an inappropriate downrating. It also makes the system more helpful generally, allowing a greater degree of discrimination in ratings.
4. A link on the home page labeled "all recent posts", using the chronological global tracking link, already available, no special techies needed:http://www.tpmcafe.com/tracker
5. Also, it would be lovely if one could not submit a discussion table entry without a specific table assignment. That would prevent posts from being lost in the ether of the internet. Related to this, is there some way for the author of a discussion table post to know what has happened to it -- i.e., declined, posted, in queue?
6. Add daily or weekly spam cleaning. On a regular basis remove all the spam comments (crazy characters) and remove the users' access. The troll rating of 0 is better than nothing but the trash would be better. It's annoying to try to read, messes up the global tracker, and, I think, encourages more spam via the broken-window effect.
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On November 29, 2006 - 2:41am artappraiser said:
You are a gem, viviane, for doing the work of rounding up all the most popular requests.
I would add two things to that which seem to irk newbies (often previously part of that huge mass of lurkers that probably pays a lot of the bill around here) until someone deigns to help them out:
1) A very simple fix: Put the default comment viewing options at "oldest first" rather than where it is now at "newest first," so that they can see and understand the comment conversations.
2) Put a "parent" link on the the replies to comments. There's a reason most forums supply that, it helps people figure out the more intricate conversations, who is talking to who. The indents just don't do the trick all the time, sorry; it's difficult to judge a few millimeters indent halfway down your screen.
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On November 29, 2006 - 2:25pm jhaber said:
I haven't kept commenting because I had my say, but Viviane's to-do sum up is excellent. And while I very much side with sphealey's feelings that the DLC posts are packaged lessons to us common folk or, similarly, Dan K's that such content is predictable to ArtA's concerns that our rudeness is keeping them from engaging with us, I doubt we can control the commenters that much more anyhow, other than by drawing better readers.
John
http://www.haberarts.com/
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May 23, 2008 10:53 PM | Reply | Permalink
Thinking,
It's interesting to see that old discussion, thanks for digging it up and posting it. One thing it makes me remember is how much cluelessness management, and the techies installing the software that time, had about how people were using the site, as if they never looked at what was going on on the site themselves. Even the simplest things, like how there had been a "parent" link, and how people used it to follow discussions, had to be explained to them. Really, it was like they didn't even check out the site very much at all.
That kind of thing is what made me reluctant to assign Machiavellian intent. Rather, in the past, it almost seemed as if management glanced at TPMCafe activity, found it boring, went back to work that was more interesting, putting off dealing with it for another day. This was also reinforced by Josh more than once making management-related posts on rules of behavior or ratings guidelines or mission statement saying "more to come" and the more to come never came. That there are no comments on TPM main page and that interaction with readers there occurs via email is also telling of a lack of interest in the forum discussion type of site and what goes on within one. One thing I must add, though, to all of that: Andrew Golis' first job here was to deal with all those complaints about the new software lacking what the old software had, and what he did is basically have the techies build back in nearly every single feature lost that people were asking to have back.
May 24, 2008 1:54 PM | Reply | Permalink
P.S.
morsus mihi @May 23, 2008 4:30 AM above sez:
Based on past history, I think maybe this is spot on but only like on a subconscious or superficial level, it's not so well-thought out, it seems more like: well, let's try this and see what happens. There is too much surprise expressed in management posts since February about what they got in the change of software as opposed to what they expected, so there is little way of knowing what the intended result as to content and audience was. And, as I have seen you note elsewhere, "Thinking," they have never been clear here about saying what kind of audience they want; always seemed to me it's either like it's a secret, or it's a "let's see what we get" kind of approach, or it's hard for them to communicate it. The question has always remained unanswered: what is TPMCafe?
May 24, 2008 3:46 PM | Reply | Permalink
Too deep for me. I prefer useless drivel. Hey, how about those Mets?
May 23, 2008 11:19 PM | Reply | Permalink
Seriously, I used to love coming to TPM Cafe. The variety of topics was really interesting. Now it's just another echochamber.
May 24, 2008 12:13 AM | Reply | Permalink
The next President will have a direct effect on all of the topics you mentioned. That's why we can't stop talking about the 3 people that have a chance to be prez. Kinda of a big deal even with Chekov going to China and all that.
May 24, 2008 1:50 AM | Reply | Permalink
DanK,
I disagree with your premise and conclusion.
Are you saying the American Presidential election is less important? Should take a backseat to earthquakes and typhoons?
I don't buy it.
Who becomes President will have an enormous impact on each and every one of the issues you've just asserted 'should' be privileged.
Asking the American electorate to take their eye off the ball now, just when things get interesting, does us all a disservice.
Telling us we're shallow for being interested enough to follow closely is, well, pretty perverse. I imagine if fewer of us followed politics you'd be smackin' us for being dolts and peasants, right?
May 26, 2008 2:54 AM | Reply | Permalink
Clinton really does have a long reach. First Politico and now various "posters" are all attacking everyone but Clinton for her crass remarks. Whatever. I don't come to TPM for world news, but for domestic, political news. World news is better found elsewhere.
May 26, 2008 12:54 PM | Reply | Permalink
And you are right that no news organizations in the US right now are talking about anything but the presidential race. Which is why I go elsewhere for news. But how does this make TPM any worse than any other blog?
May 26, 2008 12:57 PM | Reply | Permalink
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