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MEMBER DIARY

An Appeal to Erick Erickson to Return to the Old RedState Design

It has now been a little over three weeks since RedState was abruptly shut down to transfer data to a new design including the use of Disqus.  I have been patient as I listened to the reasons for the change –  honestly hoping for the best and reasserting my love for this site as we all grappled with the chaotic changes.  I decided to write this diary with the hope that Erick will consider feedback from the perspective of a very unhappy member.

I have been a member at RedSstate for about fifteen months so I am not able to provide a long-term perspective as many of the old-timers have been able to do. But I can say that I have grown leaps and bounds with respect to becoming better informed about conservatism and conservative activism as a result of my RedState membership and active participation.  Little by little, I gained the confidence to start writing diaries and I derived immense pleasure from the experience — especially interacting with members through the comments section.

Without listing exactly what is wrong with this new design, I just want to say that I am grieving what feels like a permanent loss of the cohesive community we once had.  The new design is fragmented and requires a lot of clicking to see what is going on everywhere.  The lack of so many simple features — such as being able to personalize our signatures or “reco” a diary publicly — has left me feeling cut off and isolated.  Somehow, an anonymous star just isn’t the same.

I understand that Disqus is a huge improvement for the mods (at least that’s what I heard from I think it was streiff), and enabling the mods to more effectively moderate things is an important aspect of RedState’s purpose.  But, from the perspective of a member, the camaraderie and sense of belonging has been severely impaired from the redesign changes.  Many of us used to use the Morning Briefing as an open thread to link to breaking news or articles of interest, and now, we cannot even do that any more.

I do not want to sound whiny and nit picky — I am trying to convey the overall affect of the redesign on member cohesion.  RedState is very unique in that it attracts very intelligent, creative and courageous people — the kind of people we will need to save America from the destructive haters on the left.  The cohesiveness we had before is a critical element for our success because the left never stops trying to divide and conquer us.  We need a safe place to come and spew, develop strategies to win elections and get support from our allies.

So — with all due respect — I am making this appeal to Erick to consider changing back to what we had before and finding other ways to prepare for future expansion.  What good is expansion if we lose one of our most critical components — membership camaraderie and cohesion — as a result?

As usual, I am very interested in hearing what the rest of you have to say about this.

COMMENTS

  • satchman3

    Great diary – I’m in full agreement. Comments were much more visible on the old site and you could always find an interesting discussion. Now not so much – my #1 issue is titles for comments.

    I would recommend this diary using all my sock-puppet accounts if only I could find the recommend button.

    • Ausonius

      The “0 ^” is the new sort of “Recommend” button (by the word “Reply” ): or at least is the only way to praise a “Comment.” You can use the “0 Star” button as an ersatz “Recommend” for the diary. Not quite the same…

      • westcoastpatriette

        Ausonius…the “0″ is to up or down a vote on a comment. I understand the star option at the beginning of the comments section is supposed to be comparable to recommending a diary. But the problem with it is we can’t see who is doing the “starring.”

        • Ausonius

          Yes, but apparently that is of little importance, or it would have been addressed by now? Or is my impression incorrect?

          • westcoastpatriette

            I’m not positive either, but I think the number of stars a diary receives is how they rank the “popular” category in the box up above. Not sure if they factor in the number of comments too, though.

    • westcoastpatriette

      Hahaha, satchman3…to all of your sock-puppets.

      • westcoastpatriette

        And kowalski, satchman3, I get what you mean about a title for comments. It helped me feel like I was keeping a conversation somewhat private in that even if you were ticked off at someone, you could get their attention in the title but hold back on the rant until you got to the main body of a comment. Don’t know if that makes sense but that is how it seemed to me.

        • satchman3

          I think redstate was a lot more focused on comments vs. diaries – user participation through comments was as important if not more important than front page content–certainly more interesting.

          It must be a little boring being a mod now. I hardly see any good fights anymore.

          • Bill S

            Far from. There are a lot more troublemakers to get rid of. One of the things that disappeared was our 24-hour waiting period before one could comment. That, unfortunately, has caused us a lot of grief. We are lobbying for that to return, as well as for the return of a more robust recommendation engine.

            The Eagle IT folks have been working overtime to fix things like the truncated diaries problem and a more important problem (that y’all don’t see) – caching of pages, and the ability for us to promote user diaries. There is still a list of items to work on…they are not sitting on their hands.

            One thing I would *not* expect to change, barring a really big problem emerging, is Disqus. After chatting with one of the IT guys last week, I am convinced this is the least-worst option for “outsourcing” the comment engine. The comments were causing massive strain on the server infrastructure and it was not cost-effective to keep adding server resources…putting it on Disqus was best for both short- and long-term viability of the site. Erick and the other powers-that-be have very ambitious goals for RS, and it was going to be tough to accomplish some of those with the cobbled-together commenting provided by WordPress.

            The people that administer, moderate, and manage this site care very much about what the user community thinks. But the old RS design and infrastructure was not conducive to future growth, and it had to change. Change can be hard, and it can cause some pain. It has been, and it has caused pain. That’s unfortunate.

          • pjpetzold

            The thing that has irritated me most about the new system is that there is no section exclusively for recommended diaries. It used to be I tried to read those each day, as well as the front page entries, and on occasion when I had the time would browse through the other diaries.

            Now, however, while there is the “popular” section in the RedState Communities table, it’s crowded full of Front Page stories. I’ve read those as they came out and it’s irritating having to try to sift through them to find interesting diaries. It doesn’t even make sense to me that they’re being mixed together like that. It just makes it harder find interesting diaries to read.

          • Bill S

            The fact that the “Popular” list includes front page diaries is NOT by design. That’s a bug on the “to be fixed” list. At minimum, that list should/hopefully will be driven by the Disqus “star system”, and if it becomes a problem, maybe we can get something like the old system back.

            Again, the old site was riddled with WordPress plugins that were compromising the stability of the servers, and the developers are trying to cut back on the customization to prevent (literally) once-a-day server outages.

          • pjpetzold

            That’s really good to know. It’s my biggest irritant at the moment. I suppose I might be bothered by some of the complaints about the Disqus system, but this is the only site I’ve encountered it on so I don’t worry about people from other sites finding my postings here.

            I can agree that it would be more private for everything to be held on our own server, but can also see how that wouldn’t be practical for a growing site if the costs and growth is anything like what’s been suggested.

          • AceInTX

            I agree on the front page stories being mixed in with Diaries…you can click on 4 of the headers and they all show front page pieces….what’s the point of having the same stories repeated on every page?

          • Common_Cents

            Bill, you might want to look into how Disqus handles user profiles on various sites. Is that a site choice? I’ve noticed on some sites using Disqus when you click on your profile, links to all the sites I have commented show up. So its easy for people to follow you back. That can be good and bad. Some sites seem to restrict your profile history to that specific site so trolls could not follow you back to your other sites to hit down arrows etc…

  • Viet71

    wcp, I agree.

    The new design works all right but is inferior by far to the old design, from this member’s standpoint.

  • Ausonius

    Skimming back to September 12th during a high-energy news week, I see that only 2 front-page diaries broke into triple digits (one barely at 102). The number of comments for some front-page diaries have single digits.

    Looking at diaries from regular members, many have no comments, and as of right now (Sunday afternoon) none have more than 20, and most have comments in low single digits, like my current one, and two of those belong to me!

    One would think that hundreds of comments – like in the “old days” – would be seen during such a week.

    So has the quality of diaries gone down? Or is the membership so much smaller? I have noticed a good number of new monikers: are these former members with new names?

    I know that some people who have written to me privately are staying away permanently because of security concerns connected to “Disqus.”

    So the question for RedState leaders is: are you happy with this situation?

    • Bill S

      You have a rather poor memory of “the old days”. As one who sees those comment counts first-hand and sees the hit reports, the average for a FP diary is probably around 10-20. Seldom do we top 50, and probably only about 1% ever goes above 100

      Furthermore, the Google Analytics reports show that the hit rates for the site are at least as high as they’ve always been, and on at least one day in the past week, they were far higher than normal.

      • Ausonius

        Thank you for correcting my impression.

      • chbroussard

        Do those hit rates for the site include the number of up/down arrows?

        • M_Becker

          If you’re on the site.

        • Bill S

          You can’t do an up/down arrow without generating a page hit. But you CAN up/down comments without generating a page hit…so, no…those votes are not inflating the numbers. In fact the numbers would be higher if they DID include each vote on a diary comment.

      • Jack_Savage

        With all respect Bill, I think the high traffic count has a lot more to do with all those “down” votes than it does approval of the new format.
        I am actually going to take m_becker’s advice, but not out of spite or protest. I really tried to hang with it for a while, but commenting is like running into a room, putting a post-it note on a bulletin board, then trying to find your way back to see if anyone has responded.
        Anyway, sadness is more the emotion.

        • AceInTX

          great analogy

      • AceInTX

        Bill…you guys are focusing on hit counts…or how many times something is read….or visited…we’re complaining about the lack of comments and the lack of debate…

        If bringing in more people to read the site without commenting or participating in discussion, debate and community…then this redisign is a smashing success….

        But if the goal is to keep the community, debate, participation and discussion then this is a fail of epic proportion…the community is dying…everything that has kept me coming to the site and at time spending whole days commenting and discussing events of the day are GONE…

        • Common_Cents

          boom! Exactly.

  • M_Becker

    Yeah. And maybe you can talk him into supporting Rick Perry again.

    • http://www.examiner.com/x-1597-Charlotte-Law--Politics-Examiner Mike gamecock DeVine

      Record High Fives from GC for ‘patriette, and Becker, do you remember the details of the design change before this and my demotion to “Mere Diarist”? more later ….smile

      • M_Becker

        Come on GC, you know as well as I this whole subject is simply urinating into a strong headwind. This whole conversation is a complete waste of time. The format is the format. It’s past time to get over it or move on to someplace where one can feel more at “home”.

        Useless whining. See Bill’s comments below. They will fiddle with it, but this is Redstate.

        • Common_Cents

          Beck, keep carrying the water and kissing butt, I’m sure you are on your way to a Mod or front page spot! hehe

          So no user feedback is important? Nobody ever considers it for changes?

          • M_Becker

            Hogwash CC. In the world of people who would never be asked to be anything here I’m the poster boy. And frankly, if Erick showed up at my door with a committee pleading with me to join “the group”, I wouldn’t.

            User feedback is very important. This whining piece of crap is not user feedback, it’s an exercise in victimization and we’ve seen it from the author on numerous occasions. It accomplishes exactly nothing except to give really stupid people – the author and a couple of her long time supporters – a platform to whine and bitch about stuff that isn’t going to change.

            Now then, for specifics.

            Could RS management have done a better job introducing this? Absolutely. If it was my company – and it’s not – I’d have sacked a bunch of people by now. They could have done a number of things that would have softened the impact on the user base. For instance: put up a front page diary in advance of the change and include screenshots of the new site pages. Maybe put up a beta with very limited accessibility that people could navigate to get an idea of the look and feel. Talk about the reasons for making the change – server capacity, impact of comments, third party comment options and the rationale for Disqus. Plus lots more.

            Those kinds of things “could” have been done but they weren’t. Shame on Redstate. Can’t turn the clock back.

            After the new site was put up there were a couple of diaries, one by streiff and one by Erick and there may have been more, that elicited specifics on what folks did and didn’t like. Obviously the “didn’t” list was a whole lot longer. The issues were addressed. Perhaps not elegantly enough for some, but they were addressed.

            Apparently, and I’m sure there is, a punch list exists that Eagle IT is working on. Again, some communication on specifics would be nice, but it hasn’t been forthcoming.

            And let’s get to the heart of the matter. Maybe at one time Redstate was a “user community”. Now I’ve managed to hang around here for about seven years or so and I’ve seen just about everything and from a “user” perspective. I will note that I’ve seen better transitions and much worse transitions, but there’s been one consistent thing in every one of them, communication with users – the “community” – has always sucked. Maybe that’s why I haven’t gotten my panties in a wad over this change. Well, that and I know the site management isn’t in my job description so I don’t waste my breath. If Erick wants my opinion he’s got my telephone number and my email address and I’m not hard to find. He hasn’t called and I’m not in the least upset.

            Redstate, today and for quite a while, is the property of Eagle Publishing. It’s their site and they can – and will – do with it what they damn well please. Now Erick can throw himself under the bus and say this is his design and it was his decision, but hell will freeze over when I buy into that cup of kool aid. Go look at blog.heritage.org. Close enough for corporate work. This project is Eagle’s. Their servers. Front page links? Those would be to Heritage. This is now a fully integrated corporate site.

            Let me be really clear, I don’t care one bit. Not my site, not my decisions and I’m absolutely OK with that.

            There are things I like about the site and things I don’t. Just like any other site and just every other version of RS. They have policies I approve of and some practices that I think are just brain dead stupid. Again, not my call and if something really irritates me enough I’ve email addresses I send comments to. I’ve been here long enough to have been personally yelled at by almost everybody that runs the site and I’ve kept their contact info. I also don’t remember the last time I offered an unrequested suggestion.

            OK, to summarize:

            RS did a crappy job of communicating what the changes were going to be and preparing “the community” for them.

            They didn’t ask for input from the community. I don’t think they should have, beyond doing the first thing.

            I didn’t note this, but the implementation was a disaster. I’ve been through a bunch of IT changes, many that I was a decision maker for, and this was an abortion. Looks like the baby survived though.

            RS management asked for comments and criticism after the changeover. They responded to it.

            Erick has belatedly offered the rationale for the biggest change – Disqus – server capacity and cost control.

            I don’t know if it’s been specifically said by Erick or anyone in authority, but it’s certainly been implied: this is Redstate. It’ll continue to be tweaked, but this is it. Don’t like it? Tough.

            This particular diary is not a list of things that could be “fixed” or “improved” that can be added to an IT punch list. This is a whining piece of crap that’s demanding that RS pay attention to “the community” and go back to the old version. Not happening and it’s a waste of time.

            The site will live or die based on what Eagle wants to do with it, period. They own it, they pay the bills, if there’s a profit, they make it, if there’s a loss they eat it. Get over it.

            I fully expect there will be more changes and I expect they will probably be much less well received by the people who are whining incessantly about this. I certainly could be wrong, but I doubt it.

          • Common_Cents

            yep, agree. Time will tell if the New Coke works out this time.

          • Bill S

            There is most definitely a list that is being worked. The folks behind the scenes are bitching just as loudly as y’all are…if not louder. But we do understand that they have priorities that they’re working on and we need to be as patient as possible. One fix that just hit yesterday was the ability for us to move user diaries to the Front Page. That has been a huge problem. You should see a lot more of that now. The RSS feeds were broken. They got fixed (to some extent) yesterday, as did the Twitter feed. They’re working their way through the list, but the IT staff is small in size (but large in skill :-) )

          • PowerToThePeople

            Most of us are fine Bill with the site and the effort being made to fix the issues. Most of us also understand that the staff have lives outside of RedState and their free time is being spent well.

            I for one like the many positives of the new site more than I dislike the few bad spots.

          • http://libertynews.com/ mbecker908

            Thanks Bill. Any chance you could share the punch list?

            There’s never enough IT folks when the fit hits the shan.

          • Bill S

            We don’t really have specific visibility to it. Our IT honcho (who has commented here a couple of times) is keeping track of it. If I pick up on the items we’re working, I’ll post here. I know that one that’s at the top of the list is the recommendations thing – like I mentioned earlier, I think that may be done (initially, at least) with the Disqus stars. But I’m not positive about that.

            I know they’re also working with the Disqus big-wigs to try to address some of our issues with it. I’m hoping for a fix to the “sort sequence defaults to “Best”" problem. They did make a tweak to Disqus that allows for images and videos to be posted. You’ll note the appearance of a little image icon at the bottom of the comment box. So now I can post a picture, like this.

            Progress can be slow, but they’re working on it.

          • PowerToThePeople

            Guess this is as good of a spot to mention this. Not sure if it is on your list, but one of the only issues I have with Disqus and the comments is how hard it is to keep up with multiple replies to your comments.

            When someone replies to your comment, no matter how old the comment is, there will be a box beside My Disqus above telling you how many replies you have. Once you click on it, it will display all the replies. Once you click on one, the others go away. It can get pretty hard tracking down all the other replies. I would say you can just right click on open in another tab or window, but in my browser (may be limited to certain browsers) when you do that it simply opens up on the main page, not actually on the comment so that does not solve the problem. If they could just set it to where once you click on the reply it automatically opens in a new window, we would not lose our other replies and can be decent enough to reply to all who take the time to reply to us.

          • Bill S

            I will email that to the technical folk.

          • http://libertynews.com/ mbecker908

            Thanks for the update.

            One question, I know some HTML works Disqus, do you know if there are limitations other than images or which HTML commands will work?

            Thanks.

          • Bill S

            There must be, because I tried to use a DIV block around some text the other day, and it just passed through as plain text. I don’t know what the allowable tags are. I’ll pass an inquiry back to the technical guys and find out if they know.

            UPDATE: Looks like this is the list. Kinda limited: http://help.disqus.com/customer/portal/articles/466253-what-html-tags-are-allowed-within-comments-

          • http://libertynews.com/ mbecker908

            Thanks for the link Bill, and that’s about what I figured. Bold, italics, blockquote, strikethrough. And at least anchor links. Oh well.

      • westcoastpatriette

        Thanks, Mike DeVine. It was fun while it lasted. Take care, friend.

  • tlhoward

    Couldn’t agree more.

  • conservativecurmudgeon

    The aesthetics are fine. Whatever. The content, tho’, is much diminished by the reshuffling of the deck, in my view.

    I can’t say that I understand what the goal was in the undertaking. If it was to drive interest in the sight, it has been an unmitigated failure. Taking mine as a completely singular example, I used to check in at least a half-dozen times a day to see what was up (and down) at RedState. Now, my interest has turned to ambivalence. I check in now only once or twice a week, at best. The RedState App has been trapped in the amber of late August, and I used to read it frequently; –Not any more…

    Keep the aesthetics. Chuck the Disqus and the reshuffle.

    My fear, however, is that all of this commenting is so much warbling in the wind at this point. Clearly the folks farther up the ladder than us mere Commentators and Diarists have decided that the new RedState is better than the old RedState, and the twain shall never meet.

    But, we shall see…

  • ajshea

    Frankly, the new format doesn’t attract me to come and read like the old format did. The front page, while more like a newspaper, is more cluttered, there’s no continuity or chronology of articles, and I feel lost.

    If the RSS feed worked (its stuck weeks in the past) I might read more frequently. I just don’t have time to dig around to read. I like having most of the articles all on one page that I could quickly skim and dig deeper when something interested me. Having to load multiple pages with the internet connection I have just discourages me from reading much, which is disappointing because I really like what Red State delivers. Or did.

  • chbroussard

    Agree 100% with this diary. All of my disagreements with the new site are stated already by Ausonius and others here. I especially agree with the point of many new names but not so many of the old posters. This should be troubling to the head office, as experienced and knowledgeable posters are what made Redstate a valuable source of political information for me and I’m sure many others.

  • Mike Ferguson

    Agreed. Some changes are just not good and this was one of them. This site now feels no different than the Blaze or Breitbart and looks remarkably similar now as well. I am actually saddened.

    • westcoastpatriette

      I’m sad about it, too, Mike.

  • Viet71

    Note to conservatives: progress usually sucks.

    We see it here. Progress.

    The old way was better but was clumsy.

    Note to conservatives: suck it up.

    • westcoastpatriette

      True “progress” embodies and implies improvement from what went on before. Reading the comments here, most people would disagree with you that these changes represent progress. Preparation for growth? Maybe. But, an improvement on quality, not so much.

      • M_Becker

        Progress embodies risk taking. If you don’t like Redstate, stop whining and start your own site.

        The site owners have made a decision, they’ll certainly be tweaking the site, but this is Redstate. There are more important things going on this fall than the format and commenting mechanism at a blog.

        • westcoastpatriette

          Actually, I edited that nasty response to try one of Melody’s techniques in dealing with a jerk. Instead, I’ll just say, “Bless your heart, you sweet thing, becker.”

          • M_Becker

            That was a “nasty” response? I thought you were just talking to yourself.

            See Erick’s comment. Pretty much said what I did in more words.

          • M_Becker

            And by the way, according to Alexia traffic rankings, Redstate’s traffic (site hits) are up vs last month, their reach (number of visits around the world) is up vs last month and their page views per viewer are up vs last month.

            I have no information about site revenue, but I would guess it’s not down and I would guess the site hits for Human Events, etc from Redstate are up.

          • kipling

            Traffic is up. Old Redstate community is tattered and bleeding.

          • M_Becker

            No kipling the “old Redstate community” is most certainly NOT “tattered and bleeding”.

            Lots of the “old” community aren’t enthralled with this version of the site. But the vast majority of us understand the reality of life and the web and we’ll continue to participate at whatever level time allows, just like we did before.

            There are a vocal, small minority of whiners who clamp on their “victim” armbands at the first sign of stuff they don’t “feel good about” who take every opportunity to make their feelings known. I don’t think I need to mention any names, but I would have no qualms if anyone is too dense to know who the victims are. We went through this crap when Erick called on Rick Perry – and rightly so – to get out of the primary.

            It’s not just non-productive, it’s stupid. And, given the history of the actors, it’s expected.

            If someone had a specific problem with the site, There have been several diaries on the front page asking for criticism. There was lots of it. Per Erick – and in comments by other Mods – many of those issues are being addressed by Eagle IT professionals. Many of the complaints – such as the entirety of the original post here – are not going to be addressed because they don’t conform to the REAL problems – ie: Eagle’s problems, and their goals – with and for the site. And contrary to the author’s claim this space wasting piece of crap is 100% “whiny.and nit-picky”.

            Specific issues, design and functional, if they’ve not been previously addressed should be taken to the Contact form. Other than that, grow up and get over it. Or find someplace else to post.

            Oh, and if this level of change leaves you “tattered and bleeding” you’ve got big problems.

          • kipling

            Many of the old Redstate community have either decided to move on or taken to just reading the pretty/shiny newsletter and commenting less. No one is whining or claiming victim status. People just want the site to be the best it can be. The new upgrade was in reality a downgrade as far as the community elements were concerned. As to giving others instructions, I suggest you leave that to the mods. When I want your advice I will ask for it. Until then go write some more of your Santorum hate mail.

          • M_Becker

            kipling, such a whiner.

            I’ve never written a “hate mail” piece on Santorum. I have noted that he’s not a conservative and his priorities are certainly wrong in this election year. An opinion held by most voters.

            You and wcp have been whiners since the day you darkened the door here. The people who need to be concerned about making the site “the best it can be” are the people who pay for it. That would be Eagle Publishing. Unless I missed something, you’re not Eagle Publishing.

            Erick has addressed the issues you feel the need to whine endlessly about on several occasions. There are some things they’re still working on. Get over it.

            And with reference to advice, I’d never give you advice. I enjoy watching Darwin work.

          • kipling

            Run along runt.

          • M_Becker

            Darwin strikes. Heh.

          • kipling

            Not in the least, runt. The day your opinion mattered is long gone. Now go play with your Santorum voodoo doll.

          • Common_Cents

            the new design resulted in more one way information in newsletter and killed interactive community. Look at the design decision made, they shrank member diary and member comments real estate and increased front page diary real estate. Most complaints aren’t about back end stuff but rather killing interactivity and community.

          • westcoastpatriette

            Agree, Common Cents…we got demoted. :(

          • kipling

            In the final analysis, RedState management decided to minimize the grassroots diaries and community commentary in exchange for a flashy new look and the emphasis on the front page. It is progress at its worse and speaks ill of management. I miss the old community. I’m not really inclined at this point to be a large contributer to the new one.

          • westcoastpatriette

            As usual kipling, becker has to interject himself as if he is the know it all of all things. He is totally off base and totally out of step with the majority of people here on my diary as well as most of the regulars at RedState regarding all the changes taking place. So, pay him no mind. He is a boor of the worst kind who resents his fellow man for being human and attacks us whenever we show our human side. He has trouble controlling his know it all impulses and is too socially inept to recognize when his presence is unwanted. Sorry you have to deal with him. If I had a way to keep him off of my diaries I would do it.

          • kipling

            No worries wcp. I have been dealing with mbecker for far longer than I care to remember. Keep up the writing. We need good diaries now more than ever.

          • Common_Cents

            traffic may be up(I find it very hard to believe)but quality interaction and stickiness has got to be way down. I’m sure disqus prob brings unwanted low quality traffic from RS users posting on other sites can bring back trolls when they look at commenter profile there can be RS links there by disqus.

          • http://libertynews.com/ mbecker908

            Check out Alexia. Lots of stats. And like any set of stats, you should be able to make any case you want. :-)

            I check ‘em a while ago and I’m pretty sure, based on page views, Romney is up 2 in Ohio.

          • Common_Cents

            comments and diaries are way down

        • mrsemptybucket

          you m_becker are rude and incredibly long winded, I pass your wordy nonsense by and I would never take your opinion or advice or anything over patriette. She doesn’t need me to defend her but you know, seeing how your are so snarky and rude maybe I’ll step in and tell you to go away.

    • chbroussard

      No, Viet71. Conservatives don’t suck it up. We instead attempt to make an argument for a better way. You sound like Obama and the Dems after the 2008 election–We won, so just sit down and shut up.

    • mrsemptybucket

      am I the only one who thouht you were being sarcastic? Viet71 is agreeing with you all. He is saying RS isn’t going to be listening too much regarding return to the old website. The “mods” are listening but have read more than once this “suck it up” attitude. I miss all you guys and the great conversations we had. So what is this big preparation coming up that demands RS look like Human Events? I’ve pretty much given up. I ask a question, get told I’m wrong you can solve it by…and when I go to try and solve it the instruction received doesn’t work. Either I’m blind or I am truly unable to find a real time feed where RS folks are tapping into each others comments, or threads.

  • http://www.erickerickson.org Erick Erickson

    To quote Obama, “Forward!”

    In all seriousness, I know there is a lot of dissatisfaction and the redesign process has gone much more slowly than any of us expected, but there are real reasons we made the move. First of all, the old architecture was extremely unstable. We have so many comments, the system was barely able to keep up. Put it to you this way, I realize most of you did not notice it, but it was taking me more than 2 minutes to get things posted from clicking “submit” to it appearing on screen. That was beginning to trickle down to the general user level.

    It has not been pain free. There is much we must do. But we’re actually working to build out some additional functionality and we needed a more stable site on the new version of WordPress to be able to do the additional functionality. We won’t being with it, though, until the kinks are worked out of this. You have my sincerest apologies for the difficulties, but I promise they are necessary for the long term health of the site.

    • AceInTX

      Can you track the volume of comments and give us a sense of the fall off Erick. I can’t help but think the rate of participation has fallen off. I know I hardly comment any more….the level of discussion and debate is GONE now.

      • earlgrey

        I don’t comment much anymore either. I can sometimes do it from my phone, but that is really slow and sluggish. I can’t access disqus comments (on this site) from my work computer. i get National Review ones though. I also mis being able to skip straigth to an interesting comment. Or even get back to the person who replied to a comment I made. Fortunately, this also prevents me from my debbie downer status that I earned during the health care bill’s passing. So there is a sliver lining for me and for the Red State crowd :) .

    • westcoastpatriette

      You could have said all of that without quoting Obama. :) Thanks for taking the time to respond and I hope all of your plans work out for you…while we all suffer through it.

  • Melody Warbington

    I’m going to jump in this one last time with my two cents about the makeover.

    I don’t like the constant clicking back and forth to find a comment or the extra steps. It’s just irritating that if you refresh a page, you have to click back to comments rather than having that column be stationary (it reverts to All or Diary, depending on if you’re on a diary page or the front page). I don’t particularly like the new design (too much white/hard on the eyes), but that’s a matter of preference, and I can live with it.

    I really dislike Disqus. Much too impersonal for my taste. I miss the tag lines and comment titles and nt. Even kowalski’s don’t seem to have the same flavor. I’m also concerned with the security/privacy issues others have raised. Does redstate Disqus share data with other sites? What information are followers able to access? If other sites use Disqus, what do they see? Can we block followers? There have been a few stalkers here from time to time.

    One of the biggest problems for me is that there was little to no warning, and even if the changes had gone smoothly, there is the appearance of disregard for the members and our privacy and our contributions, even if unintentional. We were rolled into a service (Disqus) without being informed (and yes, I know the way out).

    More than that, I am so very sad at the loss of valuable and meaningful information. I have more than 50 diaries bookmarked, some for the diary content, but some just for the comments. I’ve read and re-read then, emailed and linked to then, and used them for reference over and over and over again – not just the diaries, but the comments as well. I’ve asked, but have yet to hear an answer on whether or not those comments are gone for good. I know that were others besides me who would have backed up their own diaries and probably many, many more, if we had an inkling that diaries might be lost, or that the comments weren’t rolling over into the new system. I can appreciate and admire that some folks can crank out a great diary with little effort, but some of us put a lot of hard work into our diaries. I even remember one of my first 5′s, and those comments and recommendations on our diaries and the conversations we had meant something to us. It’s somewhat akin to having had a bunch of personal letters stolen from us.

    I will always be grateful to redstate and the contributions of Erick, the front page writers, and especially those behind the scenes (the mods and tech folks who do so much heavy lifting for free and with not nearly enough thank you’s from the community), and I have to believe that the decisions made were in the best interest of our common cause – to advance conservatism. And I’m forever thankful for the relationships I’ve built with others that have gone beyond the pages of redstate, but to sum up, I miss a lot more than like these days.

    • westcoastpatriette

      Hi, Melody…thanks for your thoughts. It’s all just part of the process, right? Have a great day.

  • funwithknives

    I’ve said it before and I will not cease: This site was/is a lifeline to Conservatism and it was Semi-Magical, as-was.
    But The Magic has left and what remains is not that wonderous, taken in total.
    With one or two clicks you could seemingly backtrack yourself , search other histories for trolls/mobies and so forth. Not No More…….
    You could link to Moe, Steve and others on the Face pages, right hand sides, and come right back to where you were, but no More…..
    The Spontaneity is gone, as no more sig. lines are seen and intro-to-posting/Titles
    {that were telling, SWEET, inventive, and always humourous}
    abilities are no longer here and are seemingly missed by more than This Humble One.
    I can’t space out my paras. , vertically, like I used to, and it is less than pleasing that I cannot. Sometimes A Guy needs a little space………
    This was a place to enjoy and be heard. A destination, to revel in the traveling to, and to hang around a while. It’s not here anymore , and judging by the finality of some (Mods) comments, it ain’t coming back.
    What we are left with is *This*. I’ll always come back here and hope that Promises and attempts to cure ills will be successful. But, like a youngster grown older, I will always remember ‘what was’, with fondness and no small amount of longing.
    Some things were and are right, just because they were, and are.
    Do your damndest, guys. Make this place ‘whole’ again.
    Make us WANT To Be Here………….

  • izoneguy

    New site – NOT FUN AT ALL – It is very hard to follow comment threads – the old REDSTATE was my go to site – Now I find it more like going to FOX new site to just browse around for a few minutes and then I go over to HotAir to get in on the action.
    If the powers to be at Redstate want to keep the site like this then it only opens the web for competition for a site like the “old” Redstate….

    We just want to converse without all the baggage……

  • tngal

    The old site was…home. This feels more like a….hotel. Sure it has a few things that home has like a bed, mini fridge, tv. And a few things *my* home doesn’t, like a pool, room service, and casino on the first floor. So its nice to get away to a hotel – for a weekend. But for sheer comfortableness, Dorothy had it right, “there’s no place like home.”

    • westcoastpatriette

      Perfect analogy, tngal. It’s hard to put into words how weird it feels here. Not sure if this will ever feel like home where I could put on my comfy house shoes and chat on the phone with my friends (and throw out an enemy now and then).

  • honoraryintern

    We seem to have sacrificed how ideas are communicated for for a “better” wrapper. I’ve only been posting about 10 months and what brought me originally were the back an forth that were created in the “real time” comments section. You could literally see the development of an idea and a post was sure to follow. The loss of named recco’s is giant as a recco from Melody Warblington meant something very different than from M_Becker. There are different trains of thought, or teams, in the conservative world; stars and arrows up or down erase those differences and try to create a mono voice.

    • westcoastpatriette

      That is an excellent point, honoraryintern re: different trains of thought or teams in the conservative world. An element that I have tried to point out but you have done a much better job than I. Anonymous recos mean nothing. We are very serious about our political activism here at RS and putting your name on a diary is taking a stand for everyone to see.

  • brojohn2

    TOTALLY 100% AGREE and yes I am shouting, simply because it seems impossible to get to anything I want to read. Can’t seem to find the morning briefing, so PLEASE, bring back the simplicity of what we had before this craziness.

    • westcoastpatriette

      brojohn3…to get to morning briefing, click on the main big RedState heading at the top of any page and it will take you to the front page where morn. brief. is.

  • westcoastpatriette

    This is a warning from the author of this diary to please ignore the uncontrollable hate-filled outbursts written throughout these comments by a person who goes by the name of M_Becker. I have submitted an official complaint to the site moderators to alert them to the abusive, stalking nature of his posts — particularly on my diaries of late — but in the meantime, he continues to offend. Since I wrote this diary, I feel a certain responsibility to all of the readers and commenters for the conduct that goes on here, and I sincerely apologize to all who have been demeaned, insulted and generally disrespected by M_Becker’s tyrannical rants which — unfortunately — are spread throughout these comments. Thank you for your patience.

    • http://libertynews.com/ mbecker908

      You are really pathetic wcp. You consistently post non-content diaries and then whine when you’re called on it.

      Pathetic.

  • liberty17

    I have not said much, but I really miss the old design. In fact, this is the first time I have logged on in about a week.(I was on a few times a day before)
    I was hoping that with time things would get worked out, and once the mods got some feedback they could do some tweaking to make things better. But if this this how its going to be from now on I’m going to say goodbye.

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