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TPM is just not USER FRIENDLY
OK, Does anyone remember when we could post a comment, send it, and get put right back where we were in the queue?
As opposed to now, where we get back to the beginning, and we have to scroll down and down and down until we see our avatar, and then we can read forward on the thread... Not too bad if there are 10 or 20 posts, but when it gets up to 100 or 200, or lately, more than 500, it is really ridiculous, and keeps conversations down.
If, on the other hand we have an actual life, and don't stay here 24-7, and we go to our "profile" to see where we posted last, and click on it, we have to scroll down again, to see if perhaps there are new posts, and if by chance anyone responded to what we already wrote.
To those of us who knew the old site, this is how it was:
When you posted a comment, it immediately brought you back to where you were, and you could go on from there.
New posts were differentiated from old ones by being highlighted, so you didn't have to re-read 100 old stuff to find what was new on a particular thread.
You could go to your own "profile" section and click on it and immediately see any responses that had been written, so you didn't have to go through the entire thread to have a conversation.
There was an extensive archive, so you could go back MONTHS before to review what you said, what respondants said, and on and on.
When I am on a thread that is getting a lot of attention, it is very discouraging to add anything once it has gotten past 60 comments. First, once the submitted comment is accepted, then I have to scroll all the way through again, without any way to know if knew comments have come through. It is ironic that the most interesting threads are the ones that are the most labor-intensive to get a conversation going.
This was NOT a problem before. It is a huge problem now. I am going into a busy week, and I don't have time to waste scrolling and scrolling. This was NOT a problem before, and I haven't seen one attempt at solving it.
TPM, Do you want to be like Huffington Post? I gave up posting anything there because it is far worse than here, but I wonder; is this what your goal is?
Comments (88)
Why not send a request to TPM for a fix? I sent such a comment to Politico.com and within a couple of days they'd made the change.
June 1, 2008 9:04 PM | Reply | Permalink
Oops. Sorry about he double post. I had received an error message so reposted.
June 1, 2008 9:06 PM | Reply | Permalink
I've gone so far as to send them the solution. I just don't think it's a priority.
June 2, 2008 10:18 AM | Reply | Permalink
hi folks. let me address particularly the first point. We are working on a fix to this problem, and we recognize it's really the main functionality/hassle issue with the site at the moment. with the first list of fixes, as a lot of you saw, it took a long time, but it did get done. Let me make a point about the Politico. There's a basic difference between them and us. Wish it weren't the case, but it is. Politico has a major publishing conglomerate behind it and tens of millions of dollars of start up capital. We fund everything out of the ad dollars we bring in every month. They have a number of developers on staff we don't. I'm not asking us to cry us a river. We're blessed to have all the resources we have. All I want to do is to assure people that we're quite aware that this is a problem. And we're moving as speedily as we can within our means. Josh
June 2, 2008 4:08 PM | Reply | Permalink
Thanks Josh. Your candor and straightforwardness is emblematic of what makes this blog such an outstanding news source.
June 2, 2008 4:23 PM | Reply | Permalink
Josh, thanks for the reply, AND the reassurance that you hadn't forgotten about these issues. I do appreciate your efforts, and it is better than it was at the beginning, for sure; but nowhere near as good as the old site (I know I sound like a cranky old lady waxing about the "old days," but anyway, you get my drift.)
Keep up the good work, and don't give up because we'll be right back here bitching and moaning if you do!
June 2, 2008 5:20 PM | Reply | Permalink
Have you sent a request to TPM to make such a change? I sent a comment to Politco.com asking for them to make the same change and within a few days they had.
June 1, 2008 9:05 PM | Reply | Permalink
Er, your comment makes me laugh as in: FAT CHANCE, cause I don't think you've seen the hundreds of complaint threads since February where management promised stuff was going to be fixed "next week" and then finally just gave up promising anything.
That complaint and many others have been mentioned umpteen times on many many discussion threads, and Jan was one of those people, with management either starting the threads or showing that were reading the reader started threads, over many months since February.
They always ignored that particular complaint about the change for quite some time until more recently I saw one thread where either Andrew or Josh finally addressed it, admitting that they can't afford to customize that particular feature back into this software right now, that getting back some of other features lost is their priority.
I agree that with Jan that this software is extremely poorly designed and installed for forum use and the more I use it, the more idiotic the design seems, I find more illogic in it every day. What Jan is catching onto was clear to me from day one, it is intended for use by a Huffington Post type of site, it's made to make it easy for management to put all kinds of fancy layout on their pages and to add videos and such and have such things appear or not on different subdomains.
But even that is installed poorly, mho. An example, one of many, is that there is a menu of TPMCafe categories ("House Brew, Special Guests, TPMCafe Book Club, Table For One, The Coffee House, Warren Reports") but these do not appear as headers over the posts which go into those categories. Or that the Reader Blog Archives before a certain date are not Reader Blogs at all, but Contributor Blogs only, and after a certain date it is Reader Blogs. And Contributors will find that they can't find their older stuff that easily soon, not to mention they can't link to it with old links, the urls have been changed.
The situation now is that there is a lot of expensive fixing to do if anything is to work smoothly for those who come for forum type discussion. They gave up a lot in that vein apparently in order to have TPM home page look fancy, have breaking news feeds and election polls and such, that, the "American Idol" Reader Blog contest system. (BTW, everyone could always blog here before the software change and readers could vote them up or down, the only thing new is the voting system. They just never bothered to tell Election Central people that they could blog on TPMCafe, many from there never visited it.)
June 1, 2008 9:41 PM | Reply | Permalink
Well, you have a choice, then, don't you? Change the channel if you don't like it.
Remember the adage about assuming? Actually, I have followed the various threads discussing the new software and am aware of the frequent denizens of the old site who have moved on.
Each time I have sent an email with an inquiry I have received a reasonably prompt response from Andrew. I have no complaints.
Remember, TPM provides, at no cost, this forum for folks to post all sorts of stuff that I consider to be a complete waste of time and band width. They even provide the band width for folks like you to post their complaints.
June 1, 2008 10:11 PM | Reply | Permalink
So you're happy with the way things work?
June 2, 2008 9:51 AM | Reply | Permalink
Another, probably gratuitous, observation for your edification. I am not referring here to Jan Knaus whose post I think is thoughtful. Your's, however, is whiny.
Lots of folks in the USA, denizens of what I call the McDonalds Hamburger culture, want it and want it right now; and if they don't get it right away whine.
Folks in most other areas of the globe don't expect as much, wait their turn in line, and aren't nearly so ready to bitch, even though they have way more reason to bitch than do those of the USA, where even the poorest person is rich compared to probably more than half the world's population.
June 1, 2008 10:23 PM | Reply | Permalink
This is not about wanting to do things the easy way, and not wanting to stand in line. What you probably don't realize is that this site was very good at getting thoughtful conversations going. I'm not talking about insults and to-and fro's, and troll-fests. I'm talking about people who took the time to pay attention to what others were saying and coming back to respond with a comment that they had taken the time to think out.
I am not saying that there was no trollish behavior, but that is beside the point. If I respond to a comment and then go on with my work-day, I now have to go back to my profile, click on it, go to the top of the thread and search for the response. Maybe I would like to see if there are some new ideas, but I have to re-read most of what is there to get down to my comment. If there is no response yet, I don't know if there will never be one, or if it is 1 minute away. It is pretty labor-intensive to keep it up.
Yes. I know I could find another site. But that is why I landed at TPM the last time I was searching for a site where reasonable people could talk back and forth easily. I gather you didn't know the old site. That is fine, but please don't call those of us who were there and know what is possible, old coots!
You don't have any idea of how the conversation flowed before; you just have the experience of people replying and replying to each other with insults and jabs. Of course that always happened, but there was a lot of thoughtful discussion that went on for days at a time. Now that can only happen if you have nothing but spare time, and people with nothing but spare time are not the ones who have the most interesting things to say, IMHO.
I'm glad you've gotten good feedback from TPM. What was it about? Just curious. It will be interesting to me to see if I get a response, since it is so hard to trace comments these days.
June 1, 2008 11:03 PM | Reply | Permalink
I have, contrary to your assumption, a very good idea how the old site worked, as I have been a registered user here for quite a number of years. I changed my identity when the site was changed.
June 2, 2008 4:10 PM | Reply | Permalink
Sorry, I assumed from your remarks that you had no history here. Do you prefer this way of navigating around? Do you mind having to go to "The Google" to check out your archive?
If you do, that is fine, but I don't think that calling people "whiney" who are expressing their thoughts is the way to move the conversation forward.
June 2, 2008 5:24 PM | Reply | Permalink
You're calling artappraiser whiny?
Whatever.
Artappraiser has been on this site a long time and is one of its best contributors. He's not whining. It's a critique.
Sigh. No respect these days.
June 2, 2008 12:08 AM | Reply | Permalink
Good old art pulls a fast one... "She"
June 2, 2008 12:37 AM | Reply | Permalink
Whoops!
Okay... gender neutral: I don't like people dismissing a veteran's well thought our critique as "whining" when it is clearly not.
June 2, 2008 1:22 AM | Reply | Permalink
Uh-huh. Funny, ever think of how New York Times Inc. can be heartily criticized by its consumers, but with TPM Media LLC, customers must not complain, it's whining, it's like it's unpatriotic?
On the gender matter, yes I am a she. I didn't start out intentionally hiding my gender on teh blogosphere, I just started signing up back in the early olden daze with my user name and password from ebay and art-related sites (I actually am an appraiser of art, and I grabbed the user name when available on such sites), and then I got stuck with it when I wanted to keep the same voice cross-blogs.
I don't announce my gender on bio. pages because I must admit that over the years it's been interesting to see how many think I am male, since in brick-and-mortar world I am often told I am an excessively female brain type personality. One example in particular influenced me on this a great deal. There was this very hip young mixed race guy from L.A., a self-professed metrosexual, married with a little girl that he adored, who used to frequent the board I used to be a moderator on. I enjoyed interacting with him, as he was into cultural history, like I am, but with a tail end of GenX outlook, so it gave me a different frame. He absolutely freaked out when he found out I was a hetereosexual woman, really freaked, as he was absolutely sure he was interacting with a homosexual man. I like to think that I helped him look at his daughter differently by that happening. So I don't say unless someone asks. Wrong pronouns don't mean much to someone who uses the French language as poorly as I do. :-)
June 2, 2008 3:03 AM | Reply | Permalink
p.s. In my personal life, I am also a world class complainer (along the lines of "woe is me," not about other people) so I tend to be tolerant towards people whining about my whining. I am used to my nearest and dearest doing that. :-)
June 2, 2008 3:29 AM | Reply | Permalink
If people whining about your whining undermines your point -- that TPMCafe needs to get back some of the functions it lost in the redesign, then I have to tell people to stop complaining about your whining.
Great to know a little more about you.
June 2, 2008 9:25 AM | Reply | Permalink
artappraiser whines constantly. What site have you been reading?
June 2, 2008 8:08 AM | Reply | Permalink
Within days of the technological changeover I wrote to ask if/when the function that took the reader to the same place in a post they were when clicking on "Read more," unlike the new system that puts the reader back at the beginning of a post. The answer was that it was something that would be fixed soon. I asked again after about a month, and the answer was the same.
Because I don't understand programming, I can't understand why abilities and features the previous system had are not available in the supposedly "improved" technology. It's counterintuitive to me.
That said, and even in light of Josh's answer to Jan's post, it's very difficult for me to accept that any of these issues are high on TPM's to-do list, if they're there at all.
June 2, 2008 8:45 PM | Reply | Permalink
I have made many of the same point quite often to Andrew, but I'll try again. It has gotten worse now, with the popular, long threads.
Thanks.
June 1, 2008 9:12 PM | Reply | Permalink
Jan, I thank you for your stick-to-it-tive-ness on the issue, and I think you speak for a lot of people who are too lazy to back you up. Perhaps we just gave up.
I have a hard time buying the excuse, probably coming from the software people, that it's too hard to fix this, as I see that each comment has it's own url or address, so it's not like they would be starting from ground zero.
I agree with the gist of your post that it's not a minor issue precisely because the time consuming nature of continuing a conversation discourages people without a lot of time on their hands from doing so. Those often are exactly the people with knowledgeable and interesting things to add to a conversation. The system discourages thoughtfulness and encourages both hit and run posting and trollish games between posters dominating who already know each other, who exchange towel snaps when they have a few extra minutes. One might not bother to make a thoughtful comment if only a few feuding regulars and the original are the only ones going to see it.
It's quite difficult at this stage not to make the jump to thinking that they don't want thoughtful conversation or quality, but want mass audience and mouse clicks.
June 1, 2008 10:16 PM | Reply | Permalink
I agree, and I especially agree that it is okay to say what we want this site to be like, especially since we know how it was. I really resent the comment, essentially, "If you don't like it you can leave," from Chris Brown.
That is a response that does not exactly foster conversation, IMHO. Thanks for your input, artappraiser.
June 1, 2008 11:11 PM | Reply | Permalink
"Oops. Sorry about he double post. I had received an error message so reposted.
Chris Brown"
Kinda makes the point that there are multiple problems, huh?
Do you think they are unable to keep up with the traffic? I'm new here - don't know about when it was better but agree with your current assessment.
June 1, 2008 9:41 PM | Reply | Permalink
The problem was with my internet connection not with TPM.
June 1, 2008 10:05 PM | Reply | Permalink
Understood. My bad.
June 1, 2008 10:21 PM | Reply | Permalink
Let me give one example. I recently responded to a comment on a post that has over 500 responses to it. I made a specific request in my comment to "heretic," to please give me some specific facts about why he considers Barack Obama to be the "scum of the earth," why he "hates" him, etc.
At the old site, I could look up my post, and if there was no response to it, fine; I knew that he did not respond so far.
What I would have to do now is click on my comment, which would take me to the top of the thread, scroll down, some 400+ comments, and eventually find out that he didn't respond. Maybe heretic was at work, though, and didn't have time to do it yet. Maybe he was taking him time to make a thoughtful response. How would I ever know?
I would have to repeat the insane effort over and over to see if someone took the time to respond to what I wrote.
At the old site, it would take a minute to check to see if a response was logged, and clicking on it would get you there.
THAT IS WHAT I'M TALKING ABOUT! WE HAD IT GOING JUST FINE! WHY DID YOU TAKE AWAY THE VERY ASPECTS THAT MAKE THIS SITE SO GOOD FOR BACK & FORTH CONVERSATION?
June 1, 2008 9:42 PM | Reply | Permalink
OK, you're absolutely right about the quality going down. However, I'll give you a shortcut to what you're describing in case you're not aware of it. Press [Ctrl]+[F] in most browsers ([Open Apple]+[F] for Macs) and then type in "CVille Dem" and it will search for instances of your name. That's one way to quickly go through all the comments you've made on a thread.
June 1, 2008 9:54 PM | Reply | Permalink
Thanks, Ben. That helps, (a lot, actually, once I am thinking of a specific thread), but it still doesn't get to the new comments issue; it still takes much longer than it should to continue a conversation, but I definitely like your solution.
Why didn't TPM tell us this little secret? Did you figure it out all by yourself? PLEASE, Do a blog with all your short-cuts -- we need all the help we can get!
PS, did your wife finish her hike? I just went on a (very short hike up Sugar Hollow today with my kids and dog -- saw a gorgeous snake and a huge spider, plus some bear poo.
June 1, 2008 10:17 PM | Reply | Permalink
She hasn't finished it yet, but she's already passed the halfway mark! She's about ready to leave PA and enter into NJ/NY. She's actually going to slow down a little in order to hit one of her original goal dates of August 1st. (She has a ride set up for either Aug. 1st or August 15th, so initially she was setting this time frame as her goal completion date.) It's good because it'll give her more time to enjoy the hike.
I'll think about creating a list of shortcut tricks if I can think of them. As someone who's grown up around computers, sometimes I assume that everyone else knows what I do. (My first computer was in about 1979 or so—the Compucolor II.)
June 1, 2008 10:23 PM | Reply | Permalink
It helps to have a bright yellow avatar.
June 2, 2008 1:09 AM | Reply | Permalink
I tried to do your shortcut, but the blog is no longer on the page, nor is it on my "profile" page because of all the comments I've made here. I don't even know where to go to find the blog I want to respond to, and don't even recall the name of it. That was not a problem before either.
June 1, 2008 11:19 PM | Reply | Permalink
That's what I do. In Firefox, it's very easy because the search box can stay open at the bottom, and all I have to do is Alt-N to get to the instance my name.
June 2, 2008 12:26 AM | Reply | Permalink
It's a good solution that I use often but... having a "work around" solution like search and replace is hardly a subsitute for what used to be a feature of the site.
June 2, 2008 1:21 AM | Reply | Permalink
I suppose, but the anonymous people are always the most obnoxious on the site with a few exceptions. Absent an "ignore" feature, using real names is the only way to increase the level of discourse around here.
I don't care about icons. I actually think Barack as Lincoln is kind of funny.
However, I think TPM should provide at least a little adult supervision around here if we can't self-censor what and who we see on the comment's with an automated feature. As it is, there are a number of people that refuse to yield to public pressure of the TPM members.
Speaking of the ignore feature, doesn't it seem like a total no-brainer for site's like this? I have yet to see that as a feature on any blogging site I go to. There aren't a ton of people I would ignore, but even the small handful who I would "turn off" could make a huge difference in readability.
They are not only the most irritating, but are usually the most prolific as well.
June 2, 2008 8:39 AM | Reply | Permalink
I think there's good reason to allow handles on political sites. I for one feel freer to speak without my employer watching.
An ignore feature would be a good idea, though.
June 2, 2008 11:20 AM | Reply | Permalink
I agree that many people, for whatever reason, would prefer to remain anonymous, so an ignore feature is the only way to sort this out. If someone just keeps getting ignored, perhaps they might offer different discourse.
June 2, 2008 1:56 PM | Reply | Permalink
Longtime member HoppyCalif made a comment on May 24 that you might have missed because it was late on one of the guargantuan threads, this by Andrew Golis on "How do you argue".
http://tpmcafe.talkingpointsmemo.com/2008/05/22/how_do_you_argue/
Thought you might like to see it. I ain't going to wait for it to load and then scroll down and find the exact url of the comment (heh!) as it is still on his user page, it's easier to copy it:
June 1, 2008 10:21 PM | Reply | Permalink
Requiring "real" user names or having TPM be censorious is a losing proposition. What would work in its place, however, is the ability for us to each choose who to "ignore". This would mean that we could choose to never see another post from "Present" or PotusObama2008, for example.
June 1, 2008 10:31 PM | Reply | Permalink
Ya, I agree with you and disagree with Hoppy on the point of identity disclosure, and I disagreed with him it on that thread, but I thought his general point was quite interesting and said so in more detail in reply to him on that thread. If you have the time to do the browser search thing or scroll you can find out what I said. As I said earlier, I am too lazy to to go through the paces to get the exact url of the comment and reply. I like you, so I will tell you I don't think I said anything brilliant or ground breaking, so I'd advise you not to waste your time. :-)
As you probably surmise, I am blatantly using this to make a point about Jan's point: this is basically a simple string line comment system (despite it's "reply" feature, which is just a sort of joke, makes for pretty indents.) It is not set up to follow discussions over time in the manner of a forum, but is for one individual to blog and then commenters to jeer or cheer that one blogger. Comments and discussion are disposable, it is the blogging that is promoted, i.e., if you want to talk, post a new blog and refer back to the blog of the person you wanted to talk to.
But the architecture seems to be there to put in all the features needed. This suggests to me that the people installing it didn't even bother to check what kind of audience was using the site and what they liked to do. This was definitely the case with the earlier software switch here, from Scoop to Drupal. In that case, the installers were quite clueless about the audience, but they were made by the newly hired Andrew Golis to customize everything back in that was missing. And they did it quite quickly when asked to by management, in a couple of weeks the Drupal had all the features of Scoop that the users asked to have back. Not so this time.
June 1, 2008 11:18 PM | Reply | Permalink
thanks, artappraiser, for finding that. How did you do it, by the way? I was just trying to use Ben's suggestion about the Cntrl F, but my "profile:" was so short I couldn't find the thread I was looking for that was a few hours old. When I clicked on "archives" it said they couldn't be found.
I sure do miss Hoppy; I see him rarely, for obvious reasons. I don't think the number of comments needs to be limited; I just think the management of them has to be more user-friendly. We had it before, so it is hard to accept that it is impossible now.
June 1, 2008 10:32 PM | Reply | Permalink
Tip #2: Go to google.com, enter a search phrase and follow it with site:tpmcafe.talkingpointsmemo.com. That will search for the phrase only on this site.
June 1, 2008 10:35 PM | Reply | Permalink
You know, the sad thing is that I frequently resort to Google to find old posts on TPM. That says great things about Google, and terrible things about TPM.
June 2, 2008 1:19 AM | Reply | Permalink
Awesome, Ben.
But again, workarounds are not solutions.
June 2, 2008 1:25 AM | Reply | Permalink
I think that is a great solution and probably fairly easy to implement as it doesn't require any software changes.
June 2, 2008 8:12 AM | Reply | Permalink
Yup.
Still, there is slight, creeping recovery in what was an unwelcome collapse of smooth and effective function. I can at least access my blogs from Feb 10 onward.
But I can't blame Josh for going with the crowd, I guess. Seems like the only form of ad revenue possible is linked content, not emplaced. This means TPM needs faster, simpler page loading. It's why we used to get hung, before the changeover. The new software is more compatible with advertising, which is necessary for a free site.
I have suggested a subscription version, and they have thought about it. But it seems like advertising leaks into everything without aggressive vigilance. Sao Paulo recently banned outdoor advertising, since it had become hopelessly congested and ugly.
You go to the movies, which used to advertise itself with previews, and find you have paid for commercial ads. Ditto cable, of course. Ads show up on PBS. Taxis, buses, and the Chicago "L" trains sport five-foot faces of TV personalities.
At least here, at the bottom of the page, while I type this comment, I see no ads. Won't necessarily apply to the posted comment, and note that one has to look past a large ad to see the first comment after the blog text.
June 1, 2008 10:43 PM | Reply | Permalink
If you want to get the user pages of people whose user names you remember, to see what comments or posts they have made lately, click on your own name to get the user url in your browser address bar:
http://tpmcafe.talkingpointsmemo.com/profile/CVille%20Dem
then erase your name but leave the rest, and enter the other user's name instead, for example, mine is:
http://tpmcafe.talkingpointsmemo.com/profile/artappraiser
and then hit enter and and you would get the page with their last comments and posts.
Do this often enough and you will get a nice collection in a drop-down list in your browser address bar of all these user pages you are interested in by just the action of going to the url and starting to erase the name. (You will lose this if you clear your browser history.)
Hoppy's is here:
http://tpmcafe.talkingpointsmemo.com/profile/hoppycalif2
His exact user name was hard to remember because of the "2" he had to add with one of the software changes, but I caught it when I saw him post.
User names with a space between words have the "%20" in the url as code for a space, like yours does.
June 1, 2008 10:51 PM | Reply | Permalink
Oops, the above was a reply to Jan/C'Ville's reply asking how did I find Hoppy's comment.
Which brings up, why the heck is that tick this box if you really want to reply and not comment there anyways? Isn't that the stupidest thing? When someone hits "Reply" surely one means to reply, you don't need to be asked "did you really, truly mean to reply?" Right out of Kafka it is.
June 1, 2008 10:56 PM | Reply | Permalink
I have the same issue at work. When I want to print something, I hit "print," and then I have to hit the "no kidding" key for it to print! How many times have I walked to the printer and had to go back and hit "NO KIDDING!"
I think I am getting old.
June 1, 2008 11:28 PM | Reply | Permalink
Oy hey one more kvetch and I'll quit.
Who really believes that the Recommend System works as advertised?
If you do please leave some way for me to contact you as I have some Nigerian friends who would like to tell you about some money in your name in a bank overseas.
Hell, forget the fact that it registers votes over and over and really probably doesn't. Just look at the Recommend list on your own User page and tell me if it's accurate as to Contributor posts you have recommended. I've recommended 100's of posts since I recommended "Goodbye, Cruel Ballot Box," but it's still sitting there staring me in the face every time I go to my user page right at the top! And nothing I want to track that I have Recommended recently is there.
That goes without even bothering to say that user pages should show recommendations of Reader Blogs as well, if their system worked logically, that is. Then you could which members were voting up which Reader posts, but it doesn't do that.
To the people who put this software in, all I can say is: "Heckuva job, Brownie."
June 1, 2008 11:34 PM | Reply | Permalink
Are there any sites anyone recommends that are both user friendly and conducive to thoughtful comments/responses?
June 1, 2008 11:42 PM | Reply | Permalink
The old TPMCafe!
(totally in agreement with you Jan and artappraiser, by the way)
June 2, 2008 12:04 AM | Reply | Permalink
Yup. That's why I came here from elsewhere. I got sold by a site that was offering an alternative to what was going on elsewhere. I wasn't here at the start but I saw the founding members were selling it as for grownups to discuss with a "better signal-to-noise" ratio, that's what I lot of commenters would say, and I said "that's for me!" But I must be honest, mho, that lasted for about a year and a half, then it started going downhill. The software change was just a massive coup de grace.
This has happened to me before. Maybe I am the cause, I bring bad juju? :-) More seriously, it really does take a lot of work, either by community or owners to keep quality high. Somebody or a group has to take on the role of being Ms./Mr. Prissy Schoolmarm editorial whiner holding a finger in the dyke of noise. I think massive growth in audience is a toughie, causes all kinds of conundrums (conundra?) especially if happening too quickly.
tpmgary, I am eternally searching, have no recommends, sorry. Some of The Atlantic group of bloggers with comments (Yglesias, Ambinder) seems swell at times but then gets real juvenile for days at a time. I know Tom Wright has mentioned more than once that he has looked hard and come up with nothing.
June 2, 2008 3:23 AM | Reply | Permalink
I hear what you are saying and agree completely, but you have contributed more than your fair share of "noise" the short time I have been here. If you even sort of disagree with someone, you come on with both barrels blazing. I'm not saying that isn't your right, but to claim otherwise is disingenuous.
June 2, 2008 8:21 AM | Reply | Permalink
Honestly, I don't read much here since the new version was rolled out, but I know a lot about art (but I don't know what I like, as the joke goes?). And I find this charge hard to swallow. Perhaps it's a different sense of what is noise and what is signal than I hold.
Art is always in my experience is one to argue carefully - not without aggressiveness, but never without substance either. I don't think any of those of us who lament the good old days have a problem with heated debate, as such. I think we lament the loss of extended discussion, the rise of ad hominem attacks, name calling and other comments that really don't make the reading any more interesting for those not in the slugfest. Noise is when the argument doesn't lead to anywhere interesting.
June 2, 2008 10:34 AM | Reply | Permalink
Perhaps I bring out the worst in her? It is not beyond the realms of possibility. The few times I have bothered to read her comments or reply to one, she came across as arrogant and aggressive to the point that I mentally tagged the name.
June 2, 2008 1:58 PM | Reply | Permalink
Are you joking?
June 2, 2008 11:22 AM | Reply | Permalink
Gary,
The software on zIWeThey works very well, and the posters are very civil. It's a pretty small group of regulars, though.
If you're logged in, it keeps track of what forums you've read, so it's very easy to follow changes in conversations (even over years). There aren't arbitrary 24 hour lifetimes of threads, etc., etc. Lots of nice features.
June 2, 2008 12:26 AM | Reply | Permalink
Hey you made the recommended reader's posts list.
June 2, 2008 12:35 AM | Reply | Permalink
June 2, 2008 2:31 AM | Reply | Permalink
I have a problem with all of the "official" posts on the page. Left side. They are generally oudated. They have usually less comments and / or recommends than comments by readers.
Am I missing something? What's the point?
June 2, 2008 3:47 AM | Reply | Permalink
Good writing in those posts but often not the kind that calls for comment. Also, one sees only one or two at a time.
June 2, 2008 9:08 AM | Reply | Permalink
re rudimentary bandaids continued, you might try this.
you can bookmark the link, refine your search (append one or more keywords to predefined search terms, i.e., insert before -> "Posted by ..."), specify search intervals in the adjacent pulldown menu (e.g., week, month, year).
if the "cached" option appears in returned results, clicking it will display the last version fetched by google with all search terms pre-highlighted (no ctrl + f required).
there are drawbacks, including no date sort for returned results & unpredictable cache updating. however, google seems to crawl the site daily so gas (google advanced search) could be a viable option until certain tpmc bugs are resolved.
June 2, 2008 4:21 AM | Reply | Permalink
Great post. Most of what you are discussing should have been handled long before they launched the application.
What they need to do is rapid application development and quit messing around with free crap. Drupal is OK for the everyday small business or organization to run their site, but it is not scalable enough to function as the development platform for a robust and flexible Web 2.0 environment and strategy.
What they need is a developer who can be the TPM Guru Tech Master for one low price and who can make this site awesome in a fairly short period of time. They need a single dedicated resource to take all the user feedback and transform the application, often on a daily basis for some sites. The site's design is simple enough that most of their day-to-day needs can be handled by a talented developer.
This is the reality of user expectations today. We want to suggest new features and actually seem them implemented within days, not months. A modern Internet strategy must include the ability to rapidly develop and launch new functionality as dictated by your users. Soon enough, those users will go elsewhere. No eyeballs and TPM dies.
Before they hire a single writer, TPM needs a top-notch web guru to transform their on line development abilities.
June 2, 2008 8:32 AM | Reply | Permalink
Think of the TPM software as a caucus.
If you're not willing to go through all the slog to get your point across, even though there's a more user friendly alternative in the form of a primary, then too bad. That's your problem.
After all, the constant scrolling up and down helps build community.
June 2, 2008 8:43 AM | Reply | Permalink
See, this is the kind of snark I love!
June 2, 2008 9:38 AM | Reply | Permalink
Thanks!
June 2, 2008 8:26 PM | Reply | Permalink
Why is this a problem?
One option is get a better mouse. I have a Logitech Marble Mouse that has scrolling buttons, which I get set to incremental, or even half and full page jumps. I can get right to a spot.
I like scrolling, and often find things I might have missed along the way.
Stop and smell the blogging!
June 2, 2008 9:40 AM | Reply | Permalink
If you like finding new comments, you would have LOVED the way all new comments used to be highlighted; it was easy to catch up. I don't know about you, but I re-read quite a bit of stuff that I realize I'd already perused as a scroll, and I'd rather not spend my time that way.
June 2, 2008 10:10 AM | Reply | Permalink
The new TPM, whether by design or by accident, puts a premium on new posts over long threads. To that end, if we want it to look more like what it used to, a place to foster in depth discussion, we probably need to play by the new rules: rather than sixty comments in one place, we need sixty new posts asking for the old thing back.
June 2, 2008 10:00 AM | Reply | Permalink
good luck with that
butyou might want to consider that you ain't dealing with the sharpest techies in the innertubes
the TPM sister blog "TPM Horse's Mouth" has been disabled for about a year
and the doofus in charge keeps mentioning some magical "fix" that's gonna take place at some mythical date in the future
I've been involved with blogs that have competent tech support, like DailyKOS, and the level of tech support and innovation at those blogs puts TPM to shame
the TPM staff are newshounds, not software developers
they might need a little more balance in that department around here, but you gotta be careful, cuz bloggers don't take instructions well
June 2, 2008 11:14 AM | Reply | Permalink
Victims of their own success.
June 2, 2008 12:34 PM | Reply | Permalink
We could sure use a preview feature too.
That said, and agreeing with almost all the criticism voiced above, I suspect that just keeping the system going with the volumes of users these days is a Herculean task.
Maybe now that things should quiet down for at least a month or so, with the primary ending, it's time to look at some of the suggested improvements.
June 2, 2008 2:26 PM | Reply | Permalink
You people are just a bunch of users.
June 2, 2008 3:03 PM | Reply | Permalink
Damn, Monica, the years have been kind!
How's the handbag business?
June 2, 2008 3:09 PM | Reply | Permalink
What are you? A superuser?
June 2, 2008 3:28 PM | Reply | Permalink
Jan: I tend to agree that the old site was more user-friendly, although I also understand why Josh, et al, might want to bring more new users to the site as well, and although I'm frustrated as you are, I understand the dilemma TPM was faced with, upon realizing the old software just couldn't keep up.
At any rate, I hope OhioGuy's prediction is right, and with the momentary hiatus that the end of the primary season should bring, perhaps TPM will have time to make a few of the updates they've been talking about. It would be really good to have them all in place before the general election campaign heats up.
One other thing I've thought might help bridge the gap between the expectations of long-time users and the current limitations of the software is to make a new section called "The Back Room" where those who wanted more serious and in-depth discussions could post, confident that their work would not disappear under a hail of "Clinton is the she-devil incarnate" and "Obama's pastor eats babies" sort of entries (OK, it's not really that bad!) I'm not certain how TPM could limit the posts in the new area to serious ones only, but then I'm not that forum-software-saavy. At any rate, I see no reason why TPM could not accomodate those who wish more in-depth discussion at the same time as they are continuing the new changes. Why does it have to be either/or?
June 2, 2008 4:22 PM | Reply | Permalink
I agree. TPM is my favorite site for host content and also for reader comments, but the UI has some problems (although it also has some good points, like the overall look of the site and picture than can be chosen to identify a poster.
The #1 problem is no preview mode
Beyond that, there's a bug in the password system which requires entering it twice, but I can live with that.
June 2, 2008 4:23 PM | Reply | Permalink
I want to second the complaint. The comments used to be a lot easier to send, one could edit, easily access archival posts to mention a few. When new posts were added you could look them up easily because they were highlighted. These were all very valuable features and contributed to discourse. If at all possible, I urge the site to improve itself to where it was before the remake.
June 2, 2008 4:34 PM | Reply | Permalink
There was one thing I really hated about the old site though. Loading pages took frigging forever. The 1000-post threads we've had here recently would have absolutely annihilated the old software. The new one is very snappy.
June 2, 2008 4:38 PM | Reply | Permalink
Well, yeah, but there was also, if you recall, the ability to limit each page's length. As a person still on dialup (!), I put that setting permanently on 100 posts per page, so they loaded much faster. That approach admittedly created other problems, but without it now, on a couple of very long threads, the page has simply timed out and I can't even get to the end of it in order to post (although reloading the entire page often helps). But as one of the last remaining persons in the universe still using dialup, I can hardly expect the site to adapt to my peculiar needs.
June 2, 2008 4:58 PM | Reply | Permalink
With the old site, even loading 100 comments was kinda slow. Loading 1,000 on this one is faster, I swear. Admittedly, I'm on a 16 Mbit broadband, so I might not represent the average user.
June 2, 2008 5:01 PM | Reply | Permalink