Why Does TPM "Post A Comment" Suck So Much?
Seriously. Why does it take 10 or more minutes for a comment to show up? Why does it take 30 minutes for two people to have a four comment discussion? I know I'm new to this and I love the site, but is this best TPM can do?
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It used to be better--in fact, it was fabulous--until they changed the software a few months ago. Apparently management is still trying to correct the problems, but progress seems to be glacial.
March 18, 2008 5:05 PM | Reply | Permalink
If people agree that something should be done about this sooner, rather than later. Please "recommend" this so it ets pushed up high enough to warrant some attention.
Vent people, vent!
March 18, 2008 5:18 PM | Reply | Permalink
We've been venting. Since the first hour after the change-over. There have been plenty of posts, comments, e-mails, whatever. I've had plenty of direct email correspondence with Andrew Golis. I know others have as well.
TPM will get the changes done, whenever they get the changes done. If ever. Although I'm not holding my breath.
Some of us established users are waiting for 2+ years of archives to be available, so we can copy our older works.
TPM's latest excuse for the lack of the archive? The servers that had all the information still stored on it were shipped to another location / customer. I guess they just haven't gotten the servers back. Or something. It changes every week.
Which is why many of the previous denizens of the Cafe (more like Starbucks now) have migrated to this forum / bulletin board.
March 18, 2008 5:44 PM | Reply | Permalink
This new software clearly sucks balls. I rarely commented before, but I did like the interface and community feel of the place.
What I don't get is 1) how did they rolled out software that sucked without testing it first and 2) why they didn't just put the old software back until they get this new stuff ready.
This is almost as bad at the LAUSD not paying some of their teachers for over a year now.
March 18, 2008 10:46 PM | Reply | Permalink
No, this is not the best they could do. They had a good system already in place.
From what I can tell, TPM doesn't want dialogue or conversations. They want blog churn.
March 18, 2008 5:12 PM | Reply | Permalink
Blog churn:
Probably correct observation. It gets them some leverage with their advertisers.
I'm still waiting to have multiple http: refs in a single post/comment without having to split them.
Frankly, it's hard to take someone seriously about their political views when simple things that can be engineered seem beyond their grasp!
March 18, 2008 7:45 PM | Reply | Permalink
I'm glad someone else raised this. I thought I was the only one who was suffering these delays. Let's see how long it takes this post to appear...
March 18, 2008 5:34 PM | Reply | Permalink
I suspect that a lot of the decline in discussion quality, and especially a lot of the Clinton/Obama supporter name calling (which I've indulged in) has been caused by the comment delay problem. It used to be like you were really talking to users in a public space and you really got to know the other people on the board. You were unlikely to hurl too much invective at some one you considered a friend. Now... not so much. The delay break up the conversation and without the conversation there are no relationships and finally there's no civility.
March 18, 2008 6:06 PM | Reply | Permalink
Good point. It's almost impossible to have real dialogue, so it just turns into a contest of wit or ridicule.
March 18, 2008 6:21 PM | Reply | Permalink
you're absolutely right... I think the frustration of waiting doesn't always bring out our better angels....
March 19, 2008 2:19 PM | Reply | Permalink
And why do I have to go through an involved logout-login-login dance to make an initial post every time I come to this site, and whenever I take more than about 15 minutes to write a response?
And why, oh why, is there no preview before posting, or any way of editing posts to correct errors?
Finally, I agree with destor23, the way the new system works has almost certainly contributed to the decline in the quality and civility of the discussion (though I will note that the Clinton/Obama discussions were already pretty contentious on the old system). I'm not sure that's so much due to the delay, but as much as I was annoyed by the constant abuse of the ratings system, at least ratings provided a way of responding to a comment that you felt was unfair or our of bounds without having to join the shouting match.
March 18, 2008 6:22 PM | Reply | Permalink
I would counter that the Clinton/Obama discussions were pretty contentious in Election Central. The discussions at the Cafe and Reader Blogs tended to be much more nuanced and meta in scope.
The I-P discussions, on the other hand...
March 18, 2008 6:31 PM | Reply | Permalink
Well, MJ's threads always got out of hand but even there if you got caught up in the talk and wrote something you wished you hadn't you could use the edit function to either take back your outburst or to explain it. Now we have a combination of no discussion and every post being etched in stone.
March 18, 2008 7:26 PM | Reply | Permalink
Maybe it's so slow because first it all has to get filtered through the secret room in the AT&T building in San Francisco? Just kidding...but then again....
March 18, 2008 6:31 PM | Reply | Permalink
We here at Homeland Privacy and Repression Central would like to apologize (since you happened to hit the nail on the head and all, I might as well confess), for any delays caused by us trying to cope with the unbelievable outpouring of stuff on this site. It was never like this in the old days.
And, we are a government agency, after all, so you can't expect efficiency or perfection. Most of us were transferred over from the FAA (being traffic controllers who were laid off) and the meat inspection program at USDA, but you guys don't have transponder codes attached, and no purple stamps on you, and it's really, really tough to figure out what the hell you're talking about, most of the time.
That, and the fact that none of us has the same kind of computer here, and most of us are still running Windows ME.
Have a little compassion, would you? We're supposed to be getting Macs next week, though, and that should speed things up a whole bunch. If you could just stop talking to each other for a couple of days until we clear up the backlog, we'd really appreciate it.
Thanks.
March 18, 2008 8:40 PM | Reply | Permalink
Not only ALL OF THE ABOVE, but also, the old site had a different color for new posts after you'd already read some. If there is a popular entry with lots of comments, it is a huge pain to read my way through each (old and new) post rather than skip the ones I've already read!
Like the person above, I say; this was SOLVED at the old site! Why can't it be here? It is one of the reasons I rarely comment at Huffington Post; any comment there is just lost, and no back-and-forth is possible for anyone with an actual life!
March 18, 2008 9:01 PM | Reply | Permalink
Yeah, I LOVED being able to jump to new posts!
Also, the embedding feature was way better on the old site. The way things are now, I can't tell at a glance if the comment below a comment is a response or something new.
We used to be able to headline our comments, that was also very helpful.
March 18, 2008 11:00 PM | Reply | Permalink
And don't you remember when it was possible to immediately jump to new responses????
March 19, 2008 11:20 AM | Reply | Permalink
....and it doesn't seem to like my Mac.
March 19, 2008 12:02 AM | Reply | Permalink
I posted a blog, did it under 3 minutes after logging in, and all that showed up was the fricking title!
There is an inconsistancy in how this stuff works.
AGH!!!!!!!!!!
March 19, 2008 1:34 AM | Reply | Permalink
People should be sure to recommend the OP so that maybe the TPM owners will think about it.
March 19, 2008 1:34 AM | Reply | Permalink
More recent venting I've been collecting when I see it on the site:
March 19, 2008 2:41 AM | Reply | Permalink
I thought the previous system was very, very user friendly and I was puzzled when they changed it for something that doesn't work well at all. And then didn't change it back.
Using Ockham's Razor it would be logical to think that they had found that the site being so user friendly, too many users were using it and set about making it less easy and friendly to use.
March 19, 2008 2:54 AM | Reply | Permalink
March 4 venting,
33 comments,
with cross-links and copies of a small but copious sample of earlier venting:
http://tpmcafe.talkingpointsmemo.com/2008/03/04/cafe_faqs/
-----
Member Tankard used similar language to yours on March 3:
TPM Cafe Is Now Suckful,
with 27 comments:
http://tpmcafe.talkingpointsmemo.com/talk/2008/03/tpm-cafe-is-now-suckful.php
-----
Josh Marshall's Feb. 28 opinion of the software company is quite intriguing:
http://talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/180582.php
Vaguely reminiscent of Bush and cabinet talking about Iraq or the economy?
Or it must be that his email is filled with praise for the new software?
March 19, 2008 2:55 AM | Reply | Permalink
Promises, promises, then "no comment" about servers and Reader Blog archives currently "classified":
http://tpmcafe.talkingpointsmemo.com/talk/2008/02/last-request-to-cafe-managemen.php
March 19, 2008 2:58 AM | Reply | Permalink
Andrew,
Your response to all of this, please.
March 19, 2008 3:12 AM | Reply | Permalink
The software sucks and it's misconfigured. It doesn't take much poking around to see what they're doing wrong. I just think they probably don't have anyone who's qualified to set it up properly.
March 19, 2008 7:26 AM | Reply | Permalink
If the word "suckful" hadn't existed, somebody woulda hadda invented it to describe the new TPMCafé commenting system.
Oh, I guess somebody did.
March 19, 2008 11:04 AM | Reply | Permalink
Can we also get a save draft feature? How about a preview of what the final output will look like too? Both of those features have been common on sites for years now. Slashdot.org offers all of it's source code as open source. Cut and paste some better features please.
March 19, 2008 11:04 AM | Reply | Permalink
They don't care anymore. NO responses. It's like a dictatorship. A planned economy of the old Soviet style! Where you have dozens of size 12 shoes and no size 10's. Even though you have dozens of people needing size 10! But who cares? There are shoes!
March 19, 2008 11:08 AM | Reply | Permalink
TheraP
Old East German joke:
Guy is walking home from work and he sees a long line in front of the fruit store. "What's up?", he says. "They have lemons." is the reply.
He runs home, all out of breath he bursts into his house and finds his wife in bed with his best friend. Shocked he says, "What are you two doing here?... don't you know they're selling lemons!"
March 19, 2008 2:10 PM | Reply | Permalink
Great comparison, TheraP. :-)
Really, I am starting to think it would be better for their reputation, if they can't get better software, to get rid of Reader Blogs all together and only have people put straight line commenting on Contributor's posts. See my comment below for more on that. In a way, it really is somehow similar to Soviet style communism, because there is not enough community control for socialism to actually occur, the using community only has 1/2 the tools to do a proper job, and frustrating failure is going to be a constant result.
It is ironic for a site that was originally created to offer a community gathering spot that would try to reduce the "signal to noise" ratio that it has come to what it is, lots of noise.
March 19, 2008 2:43 PM | Reply | Permalink
Pernicious effects of the software:
This recent new user, Lisa Ehrlich,
was accused of being a covert propaganda spreader, when she was really just looking for information,
because of difficulties using this software:
So in effect, the software helped caused paranoia about other bloggers like this:
simply because it's not possible to communicate well using it.
My opinion, the "blog churn" effect mentioned by Eric Stepp and Clear Thinker upthread:
http://tpmcafe.talkingpointsmemo.com/talk/2008/03/why-does-tpm-post-a-comment-su.php#comment-2662774
is really pernicious, induces misinterpretation, with ability to plant thoughts in people's minds that remain unchallenged and uncorrected. Because people can't correct their own posts and can't conduct a lengthy conversation about them either. Reader blogs ends up nearly a running scroll of subliminal messages. The way voting works doesn't help rectify that much, since it is "most popular," allowing rule of mob. I see evidence of a panic of the mob effect in there being 85 comments on Allsburg's "Clinton Trolls" thread.
It is definitely true that it's easy to push one p.o.v. with this software, as any of us users of the site for several years clearly saw. It started day one with a group of Obama supporters from Election Central flooding the input, basically taking over the editorial look, which discouraged others from posting on other topics. It was easy to get the impression that it's the "Obama pro or con" section and that their posts on other topics will not be appreciated, so why bother? To change the editorial trajectory now, as the reading audience also has an impression of what is appropriate editorially (Obama, pro or con), one would have to get together a similar size group of people to post on that topic, let's say Iraq, and vote each other up. But right now, the "Obama v. Clinton" editorial mob rules.
March 19, 2008 2:31 PM | Reply | Permalink
why does it suck?
because when any web site is building up their audience ,their "hits" , they are far more liberal in allowing those people to contribute and help in its growth.
however, once they become successful enough to be noticed by the ms media, and maybe even get an invite to msnbc, they immediately seek to control those same contributors so as not to be seen outside the mainstream and risk losing that attention.
March 19, 2008 3:12 PM | Reply | Permalink
can I suggest maybe a preview button when you post? I really suck at posting, and a preview would help me catch my mistakes before they go live, and I have no way of editing it later...
March 19, 2008 3:58 PM | Reply | Permalink
The things I don't like:
I can post a perfectly good blog, and its possible that the only thing that comes up is the fricking title.
I have learned to work my OPs out on a word doc first before trying to post here since there is no edit function.
You can't edit the OP/blogs any more.
You can't preview the OP/blogs before submitting them any more.
Its very frustrating when the software screws up.
I hope more people will recommend the OP so that maybe TPM will consider fixing the problem.
March 19, 2008 4:05 PM | Reply | Permalink
My response is now up.
March 19, 2008 6:06 PM | Reply | Permalink