JOSH AND TPM: WHERE R U? LET US HEAR FROM YOU PLEASE
And now it begins anew....
It is apparent that once again, the TPM site is being hijacked.
Numerous recommends from unknown (?) or nefarious sources are
skewing the site's blog listings. This interferes and disrespects
the efforts of valued bloggers and participants here.
With the weekend upon us, as it was one before last, we will likely
be subject to the ongoing systemic efforts to denigrate and negatively
impact the TPM Cafe.
Many have sent e-mails to TPM requested some input and hopefully
resolution to these assaults. I never received a reply, have any of
you? If so, please post the information.
Please contribute any solutions/resolutions.
Thank you.
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Versha wrote me back two weeks ago regarding that one instance, and told me that TPM staff were in the midst of discussing how to handle the situation.
I'm not sure they are aware of the one from last night (the Ted Kennedy post).
August 21, 2009 1:14 PM | Reply | Permalink
Thanks LisB -
I think it would be prudent of TPM staff to communicate with us on this matter. There is more now than the post you referenced.
August 21, 2009 1:19 PM | Reply | Permalink
this is, to me, the larger point. TPM should address this whole problem with its loyal readers publicly.
The situation warrants that, at the very least.
August 21, 2009 3:37 PM | Reply | Permalink
hmmm
I think that they don't wish to draw anymore attention to it than necessary. I think, in the end, that is wise.
Perhaps, our outrage is the magnet. Bullies poke at folks to get a reaction.
August 21, 2009 8:39 PM | Reply | Permalink
You're right on target, bwakfat. The best way to get rid of trolls is to ignore them. They get bored and go away. The more attention they get - the more people argue with them and the more people start new discussions complaining about them, the happier they are. Their only purpose here is to get a rise out of people.
Don't feed the trolls, people. Ignore them.
August 21, 2009 9:42 PM | Reply | Permalink
Josh has all our e-mail addresses. If he wanted to communicate w/ us via back channels, he could...
August 23, 2009 10:09 PM | Reply | Permalink
Who cares if people are recommending posts whose opinion you disagree with? Just click on "All readers posts" and you can see all the posts.
Why are people so up in their shorts about which articles get "recommended"??
August 21, 2009 10:27 PM | Reply | Permalink
Because TPM Cafe is a popularity contest.
August 21, 2009 11:43 PM | Reply | Permalink
Jesus Dan, you are one of the smartest around here. Quit harping and put some damn posts up again so we can rec some quality for once.
August 22, 2009 1:28 AM | Reply | Permalink
I think people here are overly sensitive about the whole "recommending" point. I couldn't really care which articles are "recommended". I frankly thing the whole recommendation thing is really stupid to begin with. Just read all the posts and ignore which ones are "recommended". Why should I pay attention to the "recommendations" when I don't know who they are from?
August 22, 2009 9:26 AM | Reply | Permalink
Because many of us have a limited amount of time, and it helpful to know which blogs are getting the most attention, so we can at least keep up on them.
On the days when I have time to read them all, I often find that the ones that got the most rec's were the ones I found the most interesting.
August 23, 2009 10:13 PM | Reply | Permalink
But you have no idea who those recommendations are coming from. Who cares if it has so many recommendations when you have no idea the source?
Do you chew Trident because 4 out of 5 dentists recommend it? You don't know if those dentists are trustworthy or not. Same thing here.
August 23, 2009 10:20 PM | Reply | Permalink
Did you even read the entire comment?
August 23, 2009 11:21 PM | Reply | Permalink
Yes I read the whole thing. Why do you rely on rec's when they're anonymous and you have no idea who's giving them?
August 24, 2009 2:36 PM | Reply | Permalink
I kind of thought the situation was somewhat better.
I do not see 64 rec's and 19 negative comments.
And except for me, the top recommended posts were pretty good, real good and by our best writers.
But I support you in your search for Justice Auntie.
August 21, 2009 1:39 PM | Reply | Permalink
Your posts were quite wonderful DD:)
And I am suspicious that Farrar posted at the time he did and has 5 recs... most likely they are the self rec'd type of thing. I will consider any recs on Farrar's blog self recs until we start seeing registered users actually making some sort of positive comments.
I did not read the Ted Kennedy post because I found the title alone offensive on a day when Senator Kennedy had communicated that he was in favor of commencing the process of finding someone to replace him.
Other than asking for a link from me to demonstrate the problem, I never received a response from TPM
August 21, 2009 2:25 PM | Reply | Permalink
dd,
To me, it appears they are not going overboard as before, but a lot of new posters with negatives about healthcare, Obama, Dems, etc. and getting just 'nuff recs to get on Rec (usually top five) but at least number to stay around full 24. And I check those I follow (over 100) and not one recs these posts.
But, just as concerned by no posted (and for the most part other) communique from TPM to this site's participants in response to this issue.
August 21, 2009 3:54 PM | Reply | Permalink
Until someone comes up with a way to deal with the issue via technology, I suggest calling a turd a turd in the comments to blogs such as the Kennedy resignation blog, currently in the #2 position, and walking away. Other than that, I would suggest regular readers here treat their own recommendions liberally so as to ensure blogs that more accurately reflect the ideas and values here reach higher numbers than the trolls blogs.
August 21, 2009 2:23 PM | Reply | Permalink
Uselss posts are again rising to the top with no viable recommends.
I just followed up on LiberalLimo by clicking on her name from a Comment to see her home page. I went to a page that had nothing. Her avatar in the comment was a Ladies' Room sign, but her avatar at her page was the standard army issue 18th century writer avatar. It did not even have a record of the comment from which I had originated my query.
I think the problem here is a lot more insidious then having several "phantom" bloggers posting recommends. It could be a software hacker. The manipulation is more subtle.
In an effort to have more transparency, I wish they would decline to show those posts in the Recent Posts lists who are on the Most Recommended Posts lists so we could see more posts. I might also be better to have the Recent Posts broken down into most recommended rather then most recent, but maybe not. My point is to have more options for reading and having posts in both Recent and Recommended is a duplication. Take them out of Recent when they make Recommended to make room for others on the Recent board.
August 21, 2009 2:24 PM | Reply | Permalink
Gregor, check your email. :)
August 21, 2009 3:43 PM | Reply | Permalink
Gregor, I invite you to re-read this. It makes no sense grammatically, or in any other way. Not one of these sentences (?) is complete with even so much as a subject and predicate. I'd like to know what you're thinking, but this jibberish is incomprehensible:
huh?
huh, again?
still trying to make sense out of this, and simply cannot:
who is "them," and ...oh, never mind.
August 21, 2009 8:28 PM | Reply | Permalink
What he's saying, C'Ville, is that once a recent post has made it to the Recommended Posts section, it should be deleted from the Recent Reader's Posts section, to make more room for new posts.
Otherwise, it's listed twice in the nav bar.
August 21, 2009 9:13 PM | Reply | Permalink
channeling sarah palin?
August 22, 2009 9:12 AM | Reply | Permalink
A Negative/Positive option under the rec button would fix this. If say a post was automatically dropped upon reaching "X" number of "negative recommendations" I think this would solve the problem. Now deciding the "X" number would be the trick. I would say 20 "negative recommendations" would be about right because if something deserves it, those of us that need to, could knock it out pretty quick.
But I agree that there needs to be a way to boot these bastards away.
Oh and Yes I know a "negative recommendation" is kinda "moronic oxy"
August 21, 2009 2:45 PM | Reply | Permalink
They, whoever they are, already have 20 phantom bloggers. The key is determining which are real and which are contrived. Find a post with the limoliberal and click through to her page. It doesn't even have the avatar from the comment, never mind any record of her comments. I wonder if this is more then just making phantom bloggers and possibly a hacker.
August 21, 2009 2:57 PM | Reply | Permalink
http://tpmcafe.talkingpointsmemo.com/talk/blogs/noblecommentdecider/2009/08/trolls-for-dummies.php#comment-3570404
Gregor, please see my comment at noble's post, or check your email. Thanks!
August 21, 2009 3:54 PM | Reply | Permalink
It would be okay to note that here. If the site has a glitch preventing LiberalLimo's comments from being seen due to the fact she does not post actual articles, then it's unfair for me to suggest she is part of the trolls.
Liberal Limo, I apologize. It's not a free pass to anything, but in this instance, I am mistaken. I am sorry for that.
August 21, 2009 5:33 PM | Reply | Permalink
You are out on a limb here, Gregor! Calm down!
August 21, 2009 8:40 PM | Reply | Permalink
I suspect that this Bill character, if legitimately from China, just asked his classmates to log on and rec.
20 would be about right and they all shared a good laugh. Wonder if it might be a political science class on the whims of mob rule.
August 22, 2009 1:34 AM | Reply | Permalink
Wow! Great idea on negative, but wouldn't 'they' just do the same to us?!?
I still think one needs to sign in before able to rec and that listings of recs per post should be easily viewed by all.
Thanks.
August 21, 2009 3:16 PM | Reply | Permalink
One of the problems with that Face, is that if they are gaming with rec's, they can game w/ negatives, and keep the good posts out that way...
August 23, 2009 10:20 PM | Reply | Permalink
Good post Aunt Sam. I made a comment above.
I'm wondering if TPM readers post elsewhere. Are there other online communities that you frequent? If so, what are they?
August 21, 2009 3:41 PM | Reply | Permalink
Does TPM management even give a damn?
It's beginning to seem as though they don't.
August 21, 2009 5:24 PM | Reply | Permalink
Damn good question, Grouch.
August 21, 2009 6:26 PM | Reply | Permalink
Hi there,
Can you please give me specific instances and links of the problems? Email me anytime at versha @ talkingpointsmemo . com.
LisB above is correct - we thought the situation from a little while ago was resolved and hadn't cropped up again. I'm sorry to say I was unaware of anything shady going on with a Ted Kennedy post last night, but I can assure you that we are looking into it and discussing the best way to move forward.
Again, please email me anytime you have Cafe problems, and if I don't respond quickly enough for you, email me again.
We owe a lot to our Cafe readers - we enjoy reading you ourselves - and we want to make this the best environment possible!
August 21, 2009 6:28 PM | Reply | Permalink
Thank you, Versha. That means a lot to us.
August 21, 2009 6:32 PM | Reply | Permalink
I just emailed Versha and wanted others to know my requests.
I suggest that people not be able to recommend without being logged in to TPM. I suggest that there be a general dash board where all activity would appear so you could go and see who has rec'd etc. i.e. 'sunshine is the best medicine.'
In this way it would be very obvious if someone is getting rec'd by non existent users.
I also requested an appointment from among long term TPM bloggers of a couple of after hours 'sheriff's be given the ability to temporarily suspend someone until the situation can be reviewed when staff is in the office. This is more or less to prevent a bombardment of abuse.
I hope that they can do something to help us handle any attempts to usurp the blogging community and turn it into an extension of "Fox 'Lies R Us' 'News?' With An Agenda".
August 21, 2009 7:22 PM | Reply | Permalink
Synchro, I think everything you stated here is just what is needed. I commented to Versha above saying same, but wanted you to know how much I appreciate the thought you and others have put into this. I'm still so new here that the workings are still a mystery to me.
I'm all for anything that gives the legitimate bloggers a chance to be seen. They're what keeps this site alive.
August 21, 2009 10:50 PM | Reply | Permalink
this is an idea we'd like to explore. we've often thought it would be good for all concerned to deputize a group of longtime, trusted readers who could deep-six, at least contingently, an obviously offensive post, etc. Again, as I've said in other contexts though, would likely require extensive programming and money, etc. but we'll put that into the mix in our discussions.
August 23, 2009 12:06 AM | Reply | Permalink
Hey Josh, on the 'deputize" idea.
I think it is a good idea. You had that kind of set-up at the beginning, with the old software, with trusted readers approving posts. Thought it worked pretty well. But allowing readers to 'deep-six' posts could possibly open up some new pandoras boxes, fwiw. But I think we have more than enough 'trusted users' around here, in terms of their judgement, to make it work.
But this idea sounds far from certain to happen right now. Thanks for asking for our input on this stuff...the software might have changed since the beginning but the way you interact with us and ask for our feedback has always been a constant, and appreciated.
August 23, 2009 3:22 AM | Reply | Permalink
Thanks for the comment.
I hope that there is consideration and action taken on having people register before being able to rec. and the other issues noted here as well as via email.
Also, I hope that it is posted on the Cafe site what the process and progress are with any changes being considered and implemented.
Again, appreciate your response.
August 21, 2009 10:28 PM | Reply | Permalink
Thanks for coming on, Versha. Just wanted to second Synchronicity's email suggestions. If they're workable at your end I think it would solve much of this.
August 21, 2009 10:46 PM | Reply | Permalink
Can we broaden the discussion to include a couple of other not unrelated issues. Let me give you Three.
First. When a post makes it to heaven (i.e. the much valued recommended readers list) why does its clone stay in the Recent Posts list? This isn't done by hand, certainly, so a software tweak could handle this pretty easily, I think. This leads me to my second issue.
In print media, white space is anathema. I once did a little paper on "filler" in colonial American newspapers. My favorite. A story about how a catastrophic fire at Old North Church in Boston was avoided when a heater in a box pew tipped, spilling coals down through a knothole in the floor. Two "servants" had the presence of mind to lift their skirts and piss down the hole, putting the fire out. Yup that really did appear in a Boston Newspaper. (One if by land, two if by pee?) But I digress.
Here at TPM the left hand column goes on and on to the end of time--. One looks at the ones at the bottom (as I type this it is John Taplin published August 18, 2009, 12:11PM) with 7 comments, the last written August 18, 2009 6:01 PM.
There are SEVEN posts on the left side below the masthead on the right, and below the masthead, nada, nothing, zilch. About two feet of white space. I guess we need to drop some more coals down another knothole. This is another software issue. There is no inherent reason why reader posts, many of which show more effort and consideration than columnist posts, should disappear in three or four hours, if that. Move the masthead all the way to the bottom. We know who you are, anyhow.
Finally, recommends or comments are only a weak indicator whether anyone reads the stuff we write. Given the number of impressions the ad people get, judged by what an ad costs here, only a small fraction of the persons reading what we write comment or recommend. So how about providing a hit counter to let us see if we're talking to the wall, or to use Frank's phrase, the table. It would be possible to tally unique hits from unique isps, to keep gaming to a minimum. It isn't important to know how many times Amike visits a page, but how many times discreet viewers go to say hi to DickDay. (Hi Dick..How are you?). When a new blog post goes up the count can start for that one. None of this is impossible.
So maybe some of the staff can talk these ideas over too, and maybe I'll start blogging again if the results of the discussion are transparent
August 21, 2009 6:55 PM | Reply | Permalink
Mike, these are excellent ideas. I don't know why there isn't a separate Rec'd Readers' Posts page that keeps them up for extended periods. I miss the old threads where things were hashed out in depth over days and days.
I think the idea behind the white space is an online phenomena. When designing web pages, it's long been the standard to leave space left and right (some pages are justified left but still have large white space right). The reason for this was because the different browsers, Windos/Mac systems, OS versions (age of computer) and even monitors created different graphic framing and what might look perfect in IE would have the navigation buttons chopped off in Netscape Navigator if they were too far to the side.
Maybe an IT expert can jump in here because I could be wrong, but I don't think non-standardization is so much a problem anymore. Still, I've got a widescreen at home and when I come back to it after using a buddy's little old antique VGA, most web pages seem to have way too much empty space. There are still browser incompatibilities. I can't browse through an individual's blogs, for example, with Google Chrome, which I use exclusively now. I expect those glitches will be debugged someday. The whole dashboard thing is unwieldy to me, as far as that goes. I can't get to past comments older than a day or so, but you get what you pay for, I guess :)
August 21, 2009 8:06 PM | Reply | Permalink
I problably didn't make myself clear enough. I wasn't referring to column margins but to margins top and bottom. If the browser lets a person read to the bottom of the left hand side of the two column format, it should allow for additional content on the parallel right hand side. But I'm a historian and only quasi geeky. I wish pseudocyants would jump in and comment here. Where is he anyway>.
August 21, 2009 8:41 PM | Reply | Permalink
My mistake. I see what you're saying (and of course a web page can continue vertically as long as wanted). The Reader Posts are titles with no above the fold paragraphs so I guess they figure they're represented numbers-wise. As a business, we are the product TPM sells. I suspect the layout of the front page has more to do with getting eyeballs on ads than anything else. (The ad that comes smack dab between a post and the comments seems most irritating and invasive to me so I imagine it costs the most).
August 21, 2009 9:07 PM | Reply | Permalink
Co-signed!
August 22, 2009 6:19 AM | Reply | Permalink
I emailed josh today to inquire about it.
One good thing to do would be to Never Comment to Farrar, et. al.
And personally, i don't want to keep taking abuse from people like GregorZap. Let's lighten up on each other, and act like Our Mamas Taught Us Some Manners.
August 21, 2009 8:10 PM | Reply | Permalink
I agree with never commenting to Farrar. He's an asshat and we should ignore him.
As for Gregor, he's a sweetie who was just upset at the time.
August 21, 2009 8:33 PM | Reply | Permalink
Agree re Farrar; Gregor is on a weird trip, and is not making any sense today. He is sounding paranoid, and his grammar is beyond belief: http://tpmcafe.talkingpointsmemo.com/talk/blogs/aunt_sam/2009/08/josh-and-tpm-where-r-u-let-us.php#comment-3570765
I think this is out of character, but still it isn't contributing to the conversation.
August 21, 2009 8:45 PM | Reply | Permalink
No need to beat a dead horse, Cville Dem. And as for grammar? If that were a requirement for expression I'd have been deemed silent long ago.
August 21, 2009 9:44 PM | Reply | Permalink
Don't know what Greg was up about. As to Farrar, I heard that Michelle Obama is secretly an organizer of the Venezuelan left and being born in Cuba, she doesn't really know much English. Stultus est sicut stutus facit.
No offense meant to you, CVille Dem.
August 21, 2009 10:48 PM | Reply | Permalink
Weird trip? Me?
To get to the root of my frustration, I am perturbed that our efforts are being buried by these meaningless posts that get recommendations far beyond their merit. I've written some pretty good stuff lately that's been buried by these posts. The technique, it seems to me is to either take the time to add several phantom bloggers, who are actually one person, or to have a bunch of devious friends who are informed there's flak going up on TPM that they should recommend. Either way, it's hijacking our blog and it's a total waste.
My thing with LiberalLimo was a mistake. If you go to her page, she has nothing, unless you look at recommends. But there are no comments noted there and the avatar is not the Ladies' Room door sign. It's the generic TPM guy from the 18th century. Anyway, I thought, mistakenly, she might have been among those creating the interference. But the absences are a TPM glitch, not of her own making. The folks that recommend the empty posts have empty pages because they do not comment and they do not post, they simply drive the artificial stories to the top with recommends.
PS: In Portland there is a bumper sticker some of the locals enjoy that declares, "Keep Portland Wierd". Just holding up my end of that! :-{)>
August 22, 2009 2:52 AM | Reply | Permalink
Cool Gregor -- I love your sense of humor, BTW!
August 22, 2009 10:17 AM | Reply | Permalink
Folks, I wanted to check in to let you know that yes, we see the problem. And we're trying to figure out a way to fix it. Since you don't have to sign in to recommend a post, people who are either trolls or spammers have realized that they can post something and then link it somewhere else and get it recommended as high as to the front page.
It's a difficult problem to grapple with on a couple levels. First, just who's an insider or an outsider isn't necessarily clear cut in the particular instance. And since it's not easy to prove when recommends have been organic or gamed we've been a little hesitant in certain cases to take stuff down. (It's just not a workable policy to take down posts that are rightwing and offensively written because they seem to have many more recommends than you'd expect.) As a general matter though we can see there's a problem, even if it's difficult to be sure in a particular case.
The obvious solution is to allow recommending only to registered users, or perhaps even registered users with a history at the site (a certain number of comments, or posts etc). The problem is that that change can't easily be made at TPMCafe without making it at the rest of the site. And it wouldn't be good for the rest of the site -- where the scale and use of recommending is very different.
Please let me know in response to this comment what solutions make sense to you. What strikes me as the most logical approach is to change the system for recommending at Cafe (either that you have to registered or recommends from registered users with a history with the site count for dramatically more.) The problem is, honestly, that this is going to involve a substantial amount of development work and money. So it may take a while and we're going to have to figure out just how complicated and expensive it's going to be.
We are going to contact the programmers who do the serious under the hood customization work on our publishing platform (Movable Type) this week and try to get a read on what it's going to take to solve this.
There's also a broader point raised by Amike and others about entirely different ways to 'surface' the best content on the site. I like the idea of a separate page just devoted to the best/most popular reader posts. the idea of having the number of reads in addition to the number of recommends be a key variable also makes a lot of sense to me.
Amike, you'd be surprised how difficult it is to get solid real-time data on how many times a post is read. It should be the most elementary thing in the world. But weirdly, it's not a variable built into Movable Type. You'll notice that we've just rolled out a 'most popular' widget on TPMDC. And we're going to have that across the site soon. But it took us ages to figure out a way to surface that data in a way that was secure and didn't require us subscribing to a ruinously expensive analytics service. Yeah, seems crazy that it's not an easily surfaced number. But it wasn't. Even our now working most popular counter involves a totally circuitous but ingenious set of workarounds by our tech guy Al Shaw, that gives a good approximation of what's most popular. But you'll notice it doesn't have a finite count of the number of page impressions. Because we actually don't have. In any case, that might be a way to figure popularity into the system though.
Like I said, please let me know your thoughts.
August 23, 2009 12:03 AM | Reply | Permalink
hmmm, maybe registered users could have the ability to"un-rec" a post?
August 23, 2009 12:09 AM | Reply | Permalink
Thank you, Josh. I appreciate the thought and hard work that must go into this, and the fact that you're looking out for us speaks volumes.
I like the idea of registered users only being able to recommend. If anything, it might help bring on lurkers who truly like us but are too shy to register. On the other hand, if anything, it will get rid of the non-registered users who want simply to abuse us.
I also like the idea of an entirely separate page for the most rec'd posts. I think it would be nice if the top 5 that you now show on your front homepage would provide a link to that new rec'd posts page. And, as amike suggested, once a reader's post goes from "Most Recent Reader's Posts" to "Recommended", it gets removed from the most recent list, and posted at the "Most Rec'd" page.
That would be a start.
Thank you for working so diligently on this. We all appreciate it.
August 23, 2009 12:12 AM | Reply | Permalink
You have to log in to comment. Why not log in to rec a post ?
C
August 23, 2009 12:17 AM | Reply | Permalink
Good question. Why it's been that way to date comes down to two reasons. We force commenter to register/login, because we want to keep quality/accountability high. I don't think it occured to us in the past that recommending would be prone to abuse. And before we surfaced popular TPMCafe posts on the front page we'd really never created any incentive for abuse. The second reason is that we've in the past wanted recommending in the news sections of the site to canvass a much broader subsection of readers, most of whom are not register. Having said that, the current issues suggest we should rethink
August 23, 2009 12:24 AM | Reply | Permalink
Um, what?
This makes no sense to me. Surely you remember the ratings abuse that went on with the old software. I remember once when Drudge linked to a story you did. (Heh, what a weekend!) It didn't take the Drudgeites long to figure out the ratings system and knock quite a few users into troll-land.
Granted, that type of thing tended to be an exception, rather than a rule, but there were plenty of peevish complaints about "ratings abuse."
All in all, perhaps that system was better, 1-5 ratings, rather than recs, with a zero rating reserved for registered users to control spam and abuse.
Or maybe just a spam button. It seems inconceivable there isn't a workaround.
August 23, 2009 12:44 AM | Reply | Permalink
this is apples and oranges. the old system was entirely different. what i'm talking about is the 'recommend' function that exists across the site with Movable Type. Up until recently, everywhere but at TPMCafe, the number of recommends didn't do anything more than put a number after the post. At Cafe, and in the sidebars of Muck and DC, it put highly recommended cafe posts in the most recommended sections. But that sort of exposure was not really enough to create a big underlying reason for gaming the system. what changed is that we made the recommended system a key to hop to the front page of the site.
August 23, 2009 12:51 AM | Reply | Permalink
We seem to be talking past each other. I do get your point Josh. Putting Cafe comments on the front page was really really great for the users here, and I think that it shows your true generosity of spirit, how you want to give the better bloggers here the opportunity to have a wider readership. You really rawk, in case no one has said so lately.
You say the system can't support a graded rec system or exceptions to the rec system? Well then, nevermind. I apologize for my ignorance. I'll just, er, shut up.
I just hate to shut out the unregistered users. I like that we get a pulse from the wider, but silent, majority.
August 23, 2009 12:59 AM | Reply | Permalink
'Can't' is too strong a word. Almost anything is possible. But it requires getting one or more programmers under the hood of the publishing platform. And that requires time and potentially a lot of money. So we have to balance what we can afford vs. what's ideal. Basically, we need to run through the options with some of the programmers that we work with and see what we're talking about. If we could put together a more finely graded system for recommended and promoting and it cost a $1000 we wouldn't hesitate. If it's 10k or more, well, that's a good deal more difficult for us to manage.
August 23, 2009 1:37 AM | Reply | Permalink
Josh,
I work some in computer security and can see your point of view. It is sad thing indeed that a few bad apples would spoil things for the majority. Unfortunately that seems to be all too common these days.
That being said, I do not think it would be all that difficult to set up the system for require login to comment. As a programmer, to me this is a fairly trivial hack. Simply checking a "switch" or "flag" as is done with the comments.
C
August 23, 2009 1:43 PM | Reply | Permalink
It is such a basic feature that I would be astounded should it not be a part of the publishing platform already.
Adding the feature only addresses the problem partially, though. There is nothing stopping people from creating accounts, so it would not stop real astroturfing. I suspect the other part of the solution is the tricky one...the simplest possible workaround would be to display the list of recommenders with timestamps in a drop-down or something.
August 23, 2009 3:31 PM | Reply | Permalink
I like that idea!
August 23, 2009 3:39 PM | Reply | Permalink
I think the best solution would be to have recommends only really 'count' once a user has made a certain number of comments or something. There's never going to be a way you can really distinguish 'real' users from trolls through a tech fix. But very few people are going to invest a lot of time registering and becoming a regular commenter just for the benefit of being able to recommend. Getting rid of the fly-bys would solve most of it.
As for the publishing platform, on the community/discussion side, you'd be surprised what isn't included.
August 23, 2009 9:35 PM | Reply | Permalink
I agree with what Bwakfat is saying here, in that we would love to strangers read our posts and be able to recommend them. At the same time, though, we'd hate to have strangers come in here and abuse the system.
So making all recommends come with a registration might not be a bad thing.
At least, for a start.
August 23, 2009 1:04 AM | Reply | Permalink
for the record, I have only this past week discovered TPM, due to Bill Moyer's promotion of Josh to President Obama regarding Health Care Reform. I immediately felt a kinship with the site and especially appreciate the unfiltered video clips
so please consider me one of the genuine newbies
September 11, 2009 10:16 AM | Reply | Permalink