Not only veterans, but many new readers have asked for increased functionality. I feel like a tiresome gadfly to always raise these issues, but others have brought these up in their comments or in their own blogs. Some popular suggestions:

1) Full access to all posts and comments of any member,

2) Preview/Edit, of course,

3) Negative as well as positive recommendations, and possibly a limit or cap on the number one can use,

4) Internal messaging,

5) Private rooms.

If there is a worry about cliques scaring away newbies, an answer would be more ways to continue a conversation. Then the friend networks won't hog live threads to talk to each other.

We all seem to want some way to rate posts up and down, too. This would improve quality. We all seem to want ways to follow conversations and interesting threads. This would encourage readers to return repeatedly. How about a radical idea---posts that have to achieve a certain number of recommendations to get posted in the first place? Another radical idea---more than one topic! (Like more than the primary mudmatch.)

Let's hear what people want.

By that I mean I expect I won't have any more complaints about the TPM software change. Not that I don't miss the old functionality, but that newcomers are feeling the need for exactly those things we used to have. To wit:

1) Full access to all posts and comments of any member,

2) Preview/Edit, of course,

3) Negative as well as positive recommendations,

4) Internal messaging,

5) Private rooms.

I am not saying that TPM should not have updated its software, or even that these and other features are necessary. I am, however, saying that it would be a nice gesture for Andrew and Josh to acknowledge the inherent value of these features, and to acknowledge that we were not being whiny by saying we missed them.

Can we note the natural genesis of cliques and friend circles? Can we agree there is nothing wrong with that? If one feels welcome one will come back, and that should be a goal, right? If there is a worry about cliques scaring away newbies, an answer would be more ways to continue a conversation. Then the networks won't hog live threads to talk to each other.

So here we are. We all seem to want some way to rate posts up and down, too. This would improve quality. We all seem to want ways to follow conversations and interesting threads. This would encourage readers to return repeatedly. How about a radical idea---posts that have to achieve a certain number of recommendations to get posted in the first place? Another radical idea---more than one topic! (Like more than the primary mudmatch.)

All right, newbies---it's your turn. Have fun, and don't leave a mess.

Let us remember how the press evolved. First were printed broadsheets, pamphlets, letters, screeds, books, etc. All were funded by charging for purchase. That is, one bought the paper or pamphlet, and read it.

Certainly the popular papers were discovered as venues for advertising, but even now the main purpose of a newspaper, I would argue, is to deliver news and for people to buy it to read that news. The ads are a second source of income, but are growing to dominate the bottom line. And now that papers are available free on the web ads are essential.

Radio was discovered by ad agencies, most famously by Benton and Bowles, who ran the Pepsodent ads. There were sponsors already, as in "This program is brought to you by...", but Pepsodent was a scripted and recorded ad, "You'll wonder where the yellow went..."

Still, radio was fairly low-cost and could have a product that was its own animal. Then there was TV.

The higher costs of TV production required ad revenue immediately. It therefore was from its inception a vehicle for delivering an audience for advertisers. This affects the product at the deepest level. Unlike a book or movie, which earn money through direct sales, TV has to tailor the product to deliver the desired type of audience.

Thus we had, until cable, the familiar rhythm of segments being interrupted by ads. Shows had to fit in the narrow timing slots, and match the demographic values desired. The programming is denied its own identity, since it would not be found elsewhere. (Changes came with recording, and one could watch later, skipping ads, but that is a bother and one likes to be up-tp-date, so there was still plenty of revenue.)

But the money advertisers are willing to spend corrupts everything. We have ads on buses and baseball fields. We have ads in movies before the previews (which are also ads, from inside the industry). We have ads on public television. It is espeically galling to pay a subscription service, like cable, and see ads anyway.

And we have ads on the web. Blogs and other web sites that become popular attract advertisers. It is apparently impossible for anyone to resist the income from ads. When a wonky idea like a search engine (AltaVista, ect.) becomes the behemoth of Google, when a goofy fun site like YouTube is a huge phenomenon, when what everyone wants is a high Google ranking and lots of traffic, content becomes compromised.

How about this: the ripoff artists of Scientology are paying this site, indirectly. The despicable Ann Coulter is paying  money to Josh et al (indirectly). Certainly the news here is so far independent. But how will the site resist the blandishment of more income, as it grows?

A few years ago I wrote to the NY Times and suggested I would gladly pay a subscription to read it. I never minded the modest cost of having a newspaper delivered; I just hated having to get rid of all that paper. They did institute a subscription, but only for a few more popular writers. And many people felt this was somehow immoral, just wrong in some way.

But they dropped it, and the tradeoff is ads that choke my computer, clog the bandwidth, clutter my visual space with cheezy animations, and generally piss me off. A major issue for TPM Cafe, I think, was the incompatibility of Dupal software and GoogleAds or other adservers. They don't deliver static image files that TPM posts, instead, it seems a link brings up whatever is the current paid-up ad. So when a page loads, it also has to get ads from some other server somewhere.

I'm an outlier, statistically, in that I don't watch TV, cable or otherwise. But the web is now TV, in most ways. And it's not free; one has to subscribe for access in most areas. We pay twice. And of course I'm hoping for multiple comments on this blog, but the beneficiaries are the advertisers and TPM.  Fortunately, at least a couple advertisers (RW wackos, etc.) are being utterly defrauded if their adservers are paying for placement here.

I first posted this in March, 2006. It feels equally apposite now.

Nothing is close to climate and energy use as the issue that needs addressing now, so that we stand a chance of being able to deal with things like terrorism or health care in the future. If we do nothing and the climate goes "south" (or possibly north) all bets are off.

The next terrorists will be either from Arctic peoples or from a low-lying nation like Bangladesh. If we are seen as doing nothing, even though we know better, we will be a target, and others may cheer.

If we don't address the expected exponential price increases for oil by aggressively promoting alternatives we won't have the money to deal with health care.

Although current models don't predict catastrophic ice melt next year, that can't be ruled out, either. There are disturbing rumblings from Greenland, literally, in that seismic meters show activity where there should be none. Apparently the ice is moving and making noise. Arctic regions now show no ice where there usually is. Antarctic ice is disappearing at 36 cubic miles per year (yes, per year!)

The warmest year on record coincided with a string of strong storms. Larry in Australia rivaled Katrina.

Life adapts but it takes time. Business adapts faster but still takes time, and when the business is life, that is, agriculture, it may not be able to adapt to shifting growing seasons or ranges of necessary life like pollinators. The fastest-adapting life is of course, bacteria and viruses. It will find new opportunities for which we may not have a defense.

Any coming year could be wild enough to ruin a growing season, or trash oil facilities, or generate immense numbers of refugees from large hurricanes. This is not a good time to run deficits.

Amelioration may be too late even if we start now, but if things have a chance of falling apart, any effort is better than none. It is especially important to be seen as taking the issue seriously and actually doing something. Not only will leading give us moral authority to encourage cooperation, it may defuse future resentment and preclude a new wave of revenge-seeking terrorists.

Since we are aiding the cash flow here by seeing way more ad content, perhaps we could expect to see a few more widgets that help us create better posts and comments?

Such as:
Preview/Edit.
Consistent HTML scheme.
Either post tracking or topic subdivisions.

Aiding the community in general and in continuing conversation would be a list of registered users, not only lists of active posts.

Internal messaging, maybe?

The advertised widget is a cute box that displays compactly the guest-contributor headlines and articles. Subscribing to the reader-blog feed gives the last 15 posts. Neither function is really different than simply being here.

Since this is a work in progress we're willing to wait a while. When Andrew or Josh post updates on the work we find our confidence renewed. A sense of what we're waiting for would be appreciated.

TPN remains unique, I feel, in its tone and structure. Certainly it's where I joined the blogging party, so I'm biased. I have just tonight been looking at recovered posts from two years ago. Topics were as varied as a substantial bookstore's non-fiction shelf. Even if I spent most of my time at the Cafe pages, and looking down-thread where no ads showed, I usually started at the front page. Now that we have ads in every possible page-display arrangement, and highlighted ads in strategic places like between blog post and comments, it's fair to ask for at least some of the former functionality.

And it wouldn't it be gentlemanly to not only display a ad for Arianna's book, but link to HuffPo on the front page?