I don't do TPM as much as I used to. I've stopped blogging for awhile, though probably not forever. I say something in the comments just to prove I haven't passed to the great beyond.

I stopped blogging because the kind of stuff I like do to just didn't seem worth the effort given how fast it disappeared, and I read a lot less because how many different ways can one say what Obama's doing wrong vis a vis health care? Been there, read that.

Some people I rarely if ever miss because they write well, about interesting things, and with either information I've not had before or with perspective I haven't seen.

I largely go by the title or by the person posting. When I don't recognize a name I make a practice of checking out what he/she has to say at least once. I don't know what will be nourishing until I take a sample.

I'd read more if...
1. there were fewer one line posts consisting of a iink alone or some cryptic comment directing me to the link.
2. If more people adopted DickDay's practice of not making multiple posts at the same time--Waiting until his existing post drops off the front page before posting a second time. Some people have multiples up at once, and each one drives yet another off the front page.
3. If there was less of a herd mentality...lots more is going on than health care. Lots more will be going on when X is the topic du jour.

So that's about it.

That's really a pretty good question...

I'm usually in a hurry, so I run down the most rec'd list 1st and pull up those with interesting titles, or by people who I hate to miss.

If time allows, I read the rest, then hit the most recent.

I probably check my dashboard 30-50 times a day to see what the people I follow are up to, more on weekends.

If I have extra time I pull up the blogs of those I follow to see if anything slipped by me.

If I see a comment by someone I don't know and it gets my goat I will go to their blog page to find out more about them before firing off a response.
I will also go to their blog page if they have impressed me with their writing and I want to see what else has been on their mind, or if I meet them in chat and want a better idea of where they are coming from...

I take rec's from the regulars seriously.

I like to get likkerd up, then start mashin' buttons.

"Take THAT you bastard!!", I shout as I mash the Reply button.

Or... EAT LEAD, DICK DASTARDLY DAY!

Beyond that, I try to stay out of jail, eat 8-12 servings of fibre (free range, organic) daily, and use the Most Recommended and Most Recent charts. Plus what amike said. Sometimes you feel you've said your piece, and read the core opinions on certain issues, so it's probably best to just shut up and do something else with the time. Like....

GET LIKKERED UP AND START MASHIN' BUTTONS!

Instead of using the "following" system (and the dashboard that implements it) as a "vote of confidence," consider using it instead to sort of pick out people that you are sort of "hiring" to work for you in looking at the site and finding things of interest on it, people that have similar tastes in content and type of discussion to yours.

That doesn't necessarily mean people you agree with politically, though it could, if that's what you are interested in.

If you like rough and tumble debate, picking people who do that allows you to find those threads. If you hate rough and tumble debate, the opposite applies. If you like the more social threads, picking people who participate in those allows you to find more of them, and if you dislike spending reading time on that, doing the opposite applies.

The dashboard is actually a way of trying to make several different kinds of audiences happier with the site. They can select out for the type of things that bother them and select for the type of things they like.

This allows for tolerance between different types of audiences to be using the same site at the same time, instead of complaining about or trying to censor others (with peer pressure or complaints about their kind of posts) who don't have the same tastes as you. It's far from perfect but better than nothing for sorting for content you prefer, especially as TPM editorial goes more and more for a big general audience.

However you use it, one big mistake I think people make is putting on people who post frequently. Unless you are a huge fan of that person's writings and don't want to miss a single thing they post, that will fill up your dashboard with their stuff and not leave space for anything else. If they post frequently and you don't forget their name, you can easily see their name on other menus and in other places and catch up with what they have been saying by clicking on their name.

If you limit your "followings" to less frequent posters who seem to have similar tastes to yours, you will find more often than not that how that ends up is that they do surfing of the site for you, and when you look at the dashboard, you find threads that interest you more than the offerings on the main site pages.

I don't use "following" to "catch" everything everyone I'm following says, I use it to find discussions and topics of interest to me. I am following over a hundred simply because when I see a name that I haven't seen often here present intriguing thoughts on an interesting thread, I have clicked on their name. They may not appear on my dashboard for another month. It doesn't cause much harm to put them on, and when they do participate, they often serve as "fresh blood" in the mix.