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.

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.

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…

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.

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 )

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

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

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.

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.

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

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.

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

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.

Run along runt.

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

Agree, Common Cents…we got demoted.

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.

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.

comments and diaries are way down