It's a complete 180 degree turn from the experience I had on HuffPost. I would put an opinion on there, and through the censorship and all the noise, it was only about a 5% chance that anyone would hear my points, and less than that would get any sort of response before getting knocked off the first page. Any strong opinion on anything was instantly dropped.

Now, I realize that part of what's different is that TPM is not quite as big as HP, but the difference goes far beyond that. The average intelligence of posts is very high. I just had a long winded discussion deep in some thread from yesterday with a GOP troll. Even that never really degenerated to the point where I grew utterly disgusted with the troll. It was civilized trolling and he seemed to be able to make a few good points without profanity. I still think I won the argument ;-) but this was a ton different from a similar experience I had on HP.

I REALLY appreciate not being censored. It's great to be able to have an intense discussion with someone who has such a different belief system than I do. It lets me get inside their head a bit, see what they are thinking. Although I didn't learn a whole lot in tonight's trollfest, what I did learn is that at least some individual members of the GOP still believe in quaint notions like trickle down economics and that taxing corporations is going to destroy the country.

Anyway, thank you guys for running such a good site. You're doing the good work. Keep it up! This has become my favorite site, I come here first now :-)

--fletch