'commended mate.

I've learned to ignore the Top 10 list, for exactly the reasons you describe.

I have recently seen posts from highly intelligent bloggers like DF and Donal fall off the list.

I always recommend Donal's and DF's posts. Donal can attest to the fact that I'm one of the people he had the above/under 55 mph discussion with the other night. I've commented at his posts and I've recommended them many a time. DF, well....it ain't just his avatar that gets me glowing, honey.

(I submit that a majority chunk of the 10-15 people required is from the group that had the Obama fund raiser this summer.)

Which exact fundraiser from this summer do you reference, Clearthinker? There have been millions across the country.

I do agree, with you, however, that it would be more effective if everyone here who posts would post one week's worth of their thoughts in one post. Given the speed at which we all learn new news during any given day, however, it's understandable where some of us might end up posting new posts several times in one day.

Some of us who do it continue to do it even if we don't get any feedback or recommendations. Others learn the hard way that it's not good to be a bandwidth hog. Others, alas, "just don't understand" and continue to post 10 posts a day.

This is the internet, after all. Some folks understand how "the google" and the internetz work, and some of us just don't.

If you are feeling left out, feel free to befriend us folks who have become friends through TPM. If you aren't, keep posting your one post a day/every other day or whatever your frequency is, Kenneth.

Dude, I think we're just going to have to suffer through. I agree that there is something wrong, but there isn't anything to do about it. After the election, the site will calm down again and things will get back to normal.

As it is, though, certain people will always drawn more attention. And with so many posts going up at any one time, a lot of good stuff is going to get lost among the noise.

If I were you, I wouldn't be so quick to criticize naval gazing, lest you be called a hypocrite.

As I posted last night,

until Al Shaw fixes the incorrect links at the bottom of the Reader Blog page:

http://tpmcafe.talkingpointsmemo.com/talk/2008/10/tpm-managemental-shaw-you-have.php

I don't think you can come close to being able to solve this problem.

Because most of those voting will be those who have the time to be here most of the time and are checking the Reader Blog page as it scrolls away, or those who know how to find their favorite posters to vote the stuff of those people up.

All those other people who only visit once a day, or god forbid, once every couple of days, can't easily find more than the last couple hours of Reader Blogs. They are not able to vote on a whole roster of all blogs of say, a single day. Because they will try the link at the bottom of the page, and they will be returned to the same page they just read, and they will give up and go read something else.

And those potential Reader Bloggers who haven't established a fan base but who might take the time to write up a good post, might also be smart enough to realize that few are going to be able to see their post, because it will only be visible for a few hours, and there's no correct archive link. And they won't do it. So you only have the same old same old decent writers getting voted up, and not many new ones.

I myself never paid much attention to the "Recommended" List, the "most popular" is rarely of interest to me. (On Kos, for example, if I don't have the time to scroll through all blogs, I prefer the Rescue Rangers choices to what is "popular.")

Here since this software was installed, I used to scroll through the Reader Blogs for the last few days to find ones of interest, from the week archive. But then they took the archives off line for the server upgrade. They only put them back recently, but using incorrect links on the bottom of the Reader Blogs page. So new people or infrequent visitors still can't learn to look at Reader Blogs the way I do.

Those incorrect links are something that could be fixed quite quickly. It says something about their sloppiness about the software that they didn't notice that they were incorrect, non one ever even tested them when reloading the archives.

But better still would be to make it so that people don't have to look at an entire week's archive to see more than the last few hours of posts. But they never took that suggestion seriously the many times I have made it. Hey, look at Josh's front page, you can only easily see a day or or so easily.

http://tpmcafe.talkingpointsmemo.com/talk/2008/10/democrats-gullible-corrupt-or.php

Here's another one for ya, CT. I don't agree with it, but I rec'd it and commented.

It's my understanding, btw, that this Readers' Post section is, and has been, under construction and that you can read more about that at the House Brew link that Andrew and others post at.

This site is under construction and a lot of what you all want to see happen is in the works.

I can't imagine it's an easy task. But soon, CT, you can willfully ignore me and all my friends if you so choose. So sit there in your chair and think happy thoughts in your cartoon balloon and feel free and all that stuff. 'Kay?

Another couple of quick thoughts..

I know some of you don't like the posts that just refer us to a news story posted elsewhere, but I don't have an unlimited amount of time to surf, so I find these posts to be helpful in managing my time.

Also, I try to read everything posted, time permitting. There are only a few posters I will not read because they are just too hateful. Most I read even if I almost always disagree with them, because often I find a thought-provoking gem either in the post or the thread...I often rec posts I find distateful simply because they are well-written and worthy of debate, even I chose not to participate in that debate (and let me be honest, some of them are way over my head!)

Anyway, thanks for bringing up the issue! rec'd!

I've browsed through lots and lots of sites, and TPM is the best I've found, warts and all

I tend to run across something and think, "people oughta see this," but I don't always put a lot of myself into the mix, so I don't mind so much if it isn't rec'd. I think the first thing I had on the rec'd list was Obama being adopted by a native American couple. That really surprised me, but people loved it.

It seems that the Cafe follows some of the same rules as the MSM. People will respond more to controversial or offbeat posts than to informative or didactic posts. Sex sells, as does a distinctive avatar.

There's nothing wrong with TPM Cafe. It is what it is and a lot of interesting (and some not so interesting) post a lot of content here.

The system is somewhat eccentric, but so what. You can always go to Daily Kos or a hundred other places if you don't like the way it works.

As far as I see it, TPM provides an easy interface where I can maintain somewhat of a blog, and post stuff to my blog that I find interesting and that I want to keep track of. There's no limit on what I can post to my blog, but at the same time, there is a general sense of self-policing that takes place. Daily Kos only allows one post per day and it's a good rule, so if you want to live by that, do.

I never ask for or solicit recs, it's cool that people find some of the content I post worth a rec, so others have a chance to see it, too. Sometimes the newsworthiness of post is long gone by the time the 24-hour timer kicks it off the recommended list, but I've also seen some great discussions spin off of a short news update. It's one of the things I enjoy most about posting some interesting news bit that's just come across the wire.

Often the topic will be posted by Josh on the front page, but we can't discuss there, so this is the space for it.

I'll say one thing as a complaint, though, give us a god-damned edit function!

Thanks to all of you.

Getting a post on the rec list has become a mark of shame rather than badge of honor. More than half that make it are the equivalent of the posts at noquarter about Larry Sinclair, Obama's fake birth certificate, and the whitey tape. And the folks that rec them and pat the posters on the back here are the no different the the folks that drool over Sinclair, the whitey tape, etc. over there and at other sites like it.

This is a very easy problem to fix. TPM simply needs to stop using IP addresses to identify people who have already recommended a post. It's a dumb way to do it, and it's incredibly easy to defraud the system (I could name several posters who do it regularly, but I'm not going to--not yet, anyway. Here's a hint though: others generally disagree with them, and sometimes people ask: "Why the hell is this idiotic post on the Recommended list?).

I've avoided pointing this out in public because I didn't want to make the problem worse, but it's long past time it was fixed. There are better ways to identify unique users.

Everyone needs to be on their honor not to abuse the system. Those of you who make a habit of it know who you are. And I know who you are too. So please stop.

Clearthinker: I find I have been agreeing with you far too often these days (actually, two days in a row - I enjoyed your post and discussion about the so-called "debates"). I am particularly galled by the rehash of news and opinion pieces from elsewhere. Shockingly, I am also in agreement for perhaps the first time with Jade 7243 (I even got the number right this time!) that it is primarily the fault of the software (easier, and more palatable, than blaming the unwashed masses).

Congratulations on an unbelievably popular post, CT.

If you don't like it change the channel.

Together our TPMcafe Community is more than an individual poster or Multiple Communities. TPMcafe should be a Community Of Users not unlike the Communities our physical being exists in. In both we should have an environment allowing efforts to grow ourselves and improve the Community!

BTW, CT -- you made the top of the rec list in one night. Seems you ain't as unpopular as you'd like to suggest.

But, if you ever need a friend or two, feel free to befriend the friends who are here.

xoxo,
Lis

What's needed is for Most recommended to calculated on a basis of page views/ So if an article is read 200 times, but recommended only 20 of those, it won't keep off a new post in the Recent list that has only been read 20 times and recommended 5 of those times.

Adding the 'following' feature will help some, but not for people who haven't been 'discovered' yet. In fact it might exacerbate the cliquishnish you cite in your post. Having a robust and dynamic tagging system should help even more, though in the beta test I haven't seen the tagging as being that much improved.

I have come to like this community, even though I miss a helluva lot of people who have ceased dropping by or who make cameo appearances now and then. That said, I think that, perhaps ironically so, the quality and diversity of posts during the election have plummeted and now consist principally of silly stuff and validation of things already written three, four, and five times over.

This is what happens in an election; everyone, except me, becomes nuts. [True Disclosure: candidly, I whined louder than anyone else at the Yom Kippur break fast at our apartment last night, but I was hungry, and all my wife's family and my daughter and her friends were just wrong :)]

In any event, I read Jade's and AA's posts on software and archivnig issues and if I understood that stuff I would likely conclude that their ideas could improve the system here. But, again, I don't think we can really evaluate how this place is going to work until after the election.

Right now, you people are just all a bunch of nuts (hee). I'm the only normal one around here and I can't make heads or tails of what's up. So, I say, let's convene a summit in a couple of weeks after the election to discuss what needs to be done.

Of course, the question is, will TPM care? Is the way they have things now too good in a business sense to tamper with? Would love to learn more about the economics of what is going on (I have now learned that, like baseball, "hits" are a good thing on a website).

I think it's the general timing that gets this place sounding like a huge echo chamber. Particularly the Cafe.

Which is why I also like hanging around EC. That provides a bit of a boost away from the miasma of the Cafe, especially when everyone has only one idea.

But CT, you post on a wide range of things. I know I've seen your posts on the reader rec list quite a few times.

Let's just say it's awfully disappointing trying to spend time writing something entertaining about Paris Hilton or Google Goggles just to realize I'm wasting my time - I could simply call McCain a pussy and get just as many Recs. And you can't blame it on timing - we posted minutes apart.

People have a penchant for Recommending stupid shit or metaposts talking about stupid shit. Such is our progressive playing field - see how far the internets have brung us?

I'm afraid I've helped create a monster...