Censorship.

It's an ugly word, isn't it?

I would argue that self-censorship is not only not ugly, but desirable. Otherwise, we might as well be suffering from Tourette syndrome.

Nevertheless, I've read from other posters here about how trying to be nice to others (or heaven forfend trying to avoid using vulgar language) amounts to self-censorship and is implicitly therefore a bad thing.

Yet, anyone who has studied child psychology can tell you that self-censorship is a skill that is a vital part of growing up.

That doesn't mean you can't cuss. It doesn't mean you can't be sarcastic. It definitely doesn't mean you can't speak to harsh truths. It does mean you should be mindful of what you write, and possibly even re-read what you write before pressing the Submit button. (If I did that more often, perhaps I'd have fewer spelling/grammatical errors in my comments.)

Preachy rant over, for now.

It's been suggested that we should share some of our tips and tricks for "working around" some of the limitations inherent in TPM's UI. So, I'll share mine here, and I'll encourage others to add theirs in the comments.

1. Avoid using an apostrophe (AKA single quote) in either your user name or in your blog titles. That is the reason this blog was not titled "A User's Guide for TPM". Using an apostrophe in your user name means that people can't reply to you. Using an apostrophe in your blog title means that the previous and next feature won't work. There used to be a problem with double quotes as well, but that's now been fixed. So, er, great—we can now reply to "Present".

2. Want to know if someone has responded to your comments? Trying to get back to what you were last reading? [Ctrl]+[f] is your friend. In most browsers this will bring up a find dialogue that allows you to search for your name or some other phrase. (On Macs replace [Ctrl] with [Open Apple].) Sometimes I search on just "Ben" in case someone's posted a comment down below due to the reply feature not working properly. Of course, hrbendorf provides false hits when using that search. Luckily, I don't mind reading what he's written. :)

3. Trying to look for old posts? There are two tactics for dealing with this. First, if you know ahead of time that a post will likely be one you'll be returning to, bookmark it. Get to know how to organize bookmarks in your browser as you'll probably want to put these in one or more folders for easy access. Second, if you're looking for one that you didn't bookmark, try using Google's site feature. If you add site:talkingpointsmemo.com to your search criteria, it will limit its search to only this site.

4. Recommend those posts that you want to show up in the most recommended list. ;)

I wrote about this once before, but it seems that people are still arguing (without intent of irony) that what we post here just doesn't matter. (Note: I've singled out one instance of it, from someone I respect, but he's certainly not alone.) We're only one voice, after all.

Well, by the same logic, our vote doesn't matter either, but we still feel that it's our civic duty, don't we? Why is that? I'd argue that it's because although each individual vote doesn't matter, collectively those votes are what decide the election, of course. There are a lot of actions in life that are like that. You touching that priceless piece of history won't do any real damage, but if everyone were to do so, it'd be destroyed far too quickly.

So, yes, what you write here does matter. I'll avoid getting preachy (yeah, I know, too late) and telling you how I think you should comport yourself, but don't think that what you write doesn't matter. Each comment by itself is like a vote—it has little impact by itself, but collectively we decide the very atmosphere of TPM as well as how some people perceive our favored candidate.