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I am Hereby Protesting TPM's Lousy Blogging Tools By ...
The TPM blogging tools really suck, in particular the lack of editing features for correcting errors on posts. I've decided that It just isn't worth the time and effort to pull together more than a cogent few sentences when the whole endeavour can be ruined by the poor website tools.
By not upgrading their software, TPM is encouraging the sort of thing I've seen a lot here lately: tiny, content-lite posts offering little more than a few sentences and perhaps a link. TPM Cafe might as well be a chat bulletin board circa 2003.
Kudos to the intrepid TPM fans who blog anyway despite the poor tools. But this blogger is going elsewhere until the fixes come through.
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Comments (27)
The thing that kills me about how crappy it all is, is that it didn't used to be like this. i just find it funny that back in jan. they could have moved the entire blog to WP or blogger and dropped in widgets and it could have been fixed in 2 days.
June 5, 2008 7:58 PM | Reply | Permalink
No way. The old YABBSe (now Simple Machines) Bulletin Board software in use in 2002-3 had far more features and was far far more user friendly than this software. This is more like Ebay, circa 1998, when the most traffic on the site was on the user-created pages on "how to use Ebay."
Somehow the blogosphere got sold a lemon, taking them many steps backwards.
:-)
June 5, 2008 9:18 PM | Reply | Permalink
Hate to break it to you, but this is "the upgraded software."
June 5, 2008 9:20 PM | Reply | Permalink
movable type sucks, always has, always will. i second the suggestion to migrate tpm to wordpress, it's a superior blogging platform.
June 5, 2008 9:33 PM | Reply | Permalink
It is frustrating... and having to remember to use code in the comments and the buttons in the blog window is down right stupid... Code should work anywhere.
June 5, 2008 10:51 PM | Reply | Permalink
Yes it is frustrating, particularly for a technical moron such as myself. You have interesting things to say, however, so I encourage you to stick it out.
I've been having all kinds of problems. I still can't figure out how to link and quote properly, despite a lengthy thread on the topic just a few days ago. I changed my avatar, but it only comes up on my profile, which is still under my original name that I never posted under, but can't seem to change. Posts are sometimes lost in the ether. And there is no correcting, much to my embarassment.
June 6, 2008 12:28 AM | Reply | Permalink
I would go much farther with the criticism, the whole site (excepting the content, of course) is an utter catastrophe. Broken news links on the main page, important discussions which vanish after their 24 hours in the spotlight, abysmal navigation, .... (I could go on for a while).
Given the enormous amount of problems, the first thing that I would strongly recommend to the TPM decision makers would be to provide a continuously accessible feedback thread for all members. Ideally, this would provide separate channels for bug reports and general design issues. (For simplicity, bug reports could also be satisfied with a basic feedback form, though discussion might help weed out user error from the real problems or otherwise provide insight into what's going on.)
PLEASE TPM: A major website requires quality technical support!
June 6, 2008 5:13 AM | Reply | Permalink
Just FYI.... the 24 hour thing is by design: posts drop off the Recommended list after 24 hours, no matter how many recs they get.
June 6, 2008 7:00 AM | Reply | Permalink
Correction: "... by BAD design"
What sort of criteria is that to have posts vanish after 24 hours? (And good luck scrolling through the archives!) Fastfood culture = fastfood blogging? For a site with the reputation that TPM enjoys, I would expect the site design to mirror the supposedly high value placed upon discussion.
To be clear: having the sidebar list include only posts within the last 24 hours would be fine as long as there was some way to sort the rest by rating or activity level. It's the lack of these other options which sends the signal that discussion isn't highly valued.
June 6, 2008 8:13 AM | Reply | Permalink
Dang, where the heck were you in February with those cogent remarks, some of us "whiners" about the bad effects of intentional changes on this site could have used you on some of those (many) threads back then. :-)
Be forewarned, you are now officially a member of the whiners club here, there are plenty of users here who think the blog-churn-fast-food-disposable-post software system is peachy keen and we whiners about that are bitter types clinging to our old ways. (User Tom Wright, in the first link, deserves kudos for bravery, he plugged away at it with many posts till finally he could stand the abuse no more from the fast food fans.)
Oh, and you might be interested in reading Dan K's May 23 thread:
for an at-length discussion of related topics.
June 6, 2008 2:37 PM | Reply | Permalink
LOL! Yeah, well a big "thank you" for bestowing upon my this great "honor." ;o)
Fact is, up until just a couple of months ago, I only kept up with the main TPM page through my feed reader, so I wasn't even aware of the readers' posts. I guess the big software change occurred before I registered, so I have no means of comparison there.
However, I do have a great deal of experience with discussion fora on other sites and have a pretty good background in usability, and frankly, it's obvious that the system here sucks! But what really gets me, and this is really the crux of the issue, is that there is no structured way of providing feedback.
It's clear that this site means a lot to the registered users, and I'm convinced that we would provide a great deal of useful, constructive advice for improving the functionality, but it's equally clear that no one appears interested in hearing from us. THAT'S what really annoys me!
June 6, 2008 3:21 PM | Reply | Permalink
For those using Firefox, you can get a good extension which adds basic html tags to your text by way of the context menu:
http://bbcodextra.extenzilla.org/index.php?lang=eng&sez=1
June 6, 2008 5:19 AM | Reply | Permalink
Editing function would be nice. But typos are also about vanity. What is most needed here from my view, and something that keeps me from blogging, is the constant and irrelevant blogs from the same people every day. Limit blogs from any one person from anytime to every thee days. The topics will be more interesting and more posters will have room to blog when the community becomes more gracious and more interested in broad political discussion than the relationships among the pics. They are not. There is plenty of room for satire and inner jokes. That gives the community character. But the overall structure limits the numbers of participants. I am sure of this.
That is the deal breaker for this 19th century gal.
June 6, 2008 8:46 AM | Reply | Permalink
The first step is a preview function. That should avoid people posting two or three times in a row just because they didn't get it right the first time.
I agree the second step should be to limit the number of blog posts. At one point, the user 'testing' had 10 posts on the recent posts list. That is way, way too much.
June 6, 2008 10:37 AM | Reply | Permalink
I've said it before and I'll say it again.
TPM software is like a caucus. Just because there's a better, more people friendly alternative in the form of a primary is no reason to actually use it.
Don't like it? Too bad, that's your problem.
June 6, 2008 9:29 AM | Reply | Permalink
Assuming this is subtle parody of mistakes in a blog that could be cured by a preview, congratulations.
OTOH, your politics are all screwed up. When various Clinton people were chairs of the DNC, they could have done away with caucuses. However, we have no recourse to a post poorly structured because the only user testing this software is one of those real clever monkeys who manage to type just about anything..
June 6, 2008 12:44 PM | Reply | Permalink
I agree, this has always been total crap. How hard would it be to have a goddamn edit button and the ability to preview your post?
Oh, and not having to enter your user/pass over and over and over again.
June 6, 2008 10:31 AM | Reply | Permalink
Agreed and recommended. What is this? 1994? It's the worst blogging software on the planet. WORDPRESS IS FREE, KIDS! Just get it. Install it. It will change your life.
June 6, 2008 11:23 AM | Reply | Permalink
I would kill for collapsible threads.
June 6, 2008 11:24 AM | Reply | Permalink
This is like the millionth meta post on this subject. The only thing I can say is Aaaargh!
June 6, 2008 12:01 PM | Reply | Permalink
Yeah, exactly. If they fix the software, what are we gonna talk about?
June 6, 2008 12:27 PM | Reply | Permalink
hah, that really is the question, ain't it?
June 6, 2008 2:39 PM | Reply | Permalink
Yeah, after "misery loves company," what could we possibly say?
Puh-lease!
June 6, 2008 2:51 PM | Reply | Permalink
That link was so funny! Scary too!
June 6, 2008 3:04 PM | Reply | Permalink
I know...kind of gross. My son sent it to me (teenage boys..what can I say). I debated on whether to link it or not, but it seemed so apropos for the moment.
June 6, 2008 3:24 PM | Reply | Permalink
TPM is beyond a doubt has SHITTIEST technical infrastructure on the left. Even fucking HaloScan is better than this.
June 6, 2008 4:36 PM | Reply | Permalink
I just inadvertenty posted the same thing seven times (or more? who knows when they may show up) due to an erroneous error message.
I give up.
June 6, 2008 4:46 PM | Reply | Permalink
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