There's no reason to contact them, as there was a pattern of removing a couple meta comments earlier, which I had stupidly just shrugged off as gltiches, and which I reposted as points yesterday lin a different form on Koroush's thread. And then this happened pretty quickly in response. It's pretty clear that some of teh powers that be of the new system don't want criticism or asking questions except on those points which they chose to bring up, in the order they chose to bring them up.

I can see to them I was being a rabble rouser, ruining their plan, whatever the heck it is. That there was no announcement of the Discus tracking features and they are not fully installed, and that they never acknowledged me and others telling people about them is real strange, very suspicious. And it was two steps they took, not one, blocking and removal of comments, between them there was a lag and I got some strange page loads.

If it is the case that it was done by a mid level underling, and not directly from the top, I don't really wish to be there in that situation either, to have to worry if I am offending someone. I'm not into that being hated.thing that some forum participants seem to love.

Mr. Day, mho, you are much better off anywhere you are appreciated for the large and varied audience you draw, and never causing any trouble in the process,with  like near zero trolls, as your manner nips that in the bud. And you're doing that day in day out without charge, it's a gift to the site you are on..

Yeah, it's traditional to give a warning or to send an email saying "I can't stand you on my site anymore, please leave.". Maybe they are just at wit's end, cracking up over there, who knows.

Thinking back, there was one reply t I made on the Koroush thread that might have really got someone's goat. Someone said they signed in from Facebook but can't get a dashboard anymore. And I replied, there's no dashoard anymore, here's a link to a thread on the new tracker, w/short explanaion.  Then I joked (with a smiley at the end)  that I noticed that there was more commenting going on over at TPM Facebook's page lately than there was here on the site, that maybe they should just sell the whole thing to Zuckerman and move the whole thing over there, seems where the current trajectory was going. My bad, maybe too much acid..

I am pleased to see you pipe in here. You are one of my favorite commenters-even tho I don't always agree--no surprise as I am usually always a fan of the input of smart independents. I went looking for ya when you didn't turn up at TPM, and happened to see your reception at OnceuponaTPM, was aghast, wrote up a big rant to post in response and then decided it was not wise to do that. Was thinking that pseudocyants might have been right at your side there. Sigh, that hope thing is real problematic ain't it? (You don't hafta answer that, it's a rhetorical.)

All I was interested was the well thought out comments, replies and cafe

The strange thing about people like us there, who come for that, is that often over the years it seemed like they kept trying to kill it, over and over, and eventually we'd come back and recreate it. (See for example, Tom Wright's "The End of Conversation "of Feb. 2008.) They'd take away the tools we had to do that and, while such users badgered them for replacements, users would figure out workarounds and patiently wait to be able to do it again.

Strikes me that you're doing that now in faithfully trying to log in, despite how aggravating it is and despite how  interacting with Koroush on that is like trying to talk to an alien. And past history has shown it's worth it to stick with it and be patient.

But I've always thought it important ito keep in mind that Josh Marshall has never allowed comments on his own posts and that he seems to prefer feedback from readers and discussion with readers via email.

This time, it may truly be over, if it is the case as I suspect with me that one can be banned for talking about it? He may be sick and tired of keeping us in the style to which we have been accustomed? When they say to users: be patient--I'm not sure they are talking to us types.

Hi OGD,

I didn't mean to imply Gettysburg's comments were deleted, they weren't.

No one else's comments around mine have been deleted. Where context would be ruined, my name is still there with "comment deleted." Other times, like with the reply to Gettysburg, where context would not be ruined, my comment just disappeared.

I replied to him on that thread early on, with a pretty long and serious comment, in between my replying to people on Koroush's thread. That's when the ban on my commenting happened .I saw it published, checking a couple of times for reaction, then I saw it disappear when shortly thereafter the ban notice showed up, all my comments were removed, except the last one. Here's an example of one where they kept my name but deleted the content to avoid deleting stillidealistic and moat replying to me, and here's an example of where they kept my name to avoid deleting Josh Marshall's reply to me.

I really don't think it's a glitch. Again, here's a screenshot of the ban I see.

I too can still see all the commenting going on, nothing else has changed status quo that I can see. I've noticed a few deletions that appear to be for moderation purposes, but nothing like all of someone's comments being deleted  Like you, I have not been able to "capture" my ID on Discus, it does not recognize me as the same person on TPM, instead, but I can subscribe to myself, and I am subscribing to maybe 40 people.

Synchronicity got the same ban for posting her "fight the crazy" request as a comment on a bunch of threads, see above.

Re: flying under the radar--you've never been one to be crtical of management there, as such I don't think you'll have any problem. They don't seem to be putting a block on people whose comments are removed for what they say to others, you can be as combative as you like, they just remove the individual comments they don't like, probably from others flagging them, and let them proceed with commenting.

Ramona

Sounds like you missed this:

Good news: the new TPM system does have tracking of comments by user, and "Dashboard" style capability, Art Appraiser's Blog, September 9, 2010

Which really does bring us to the topic of this thread.

There is a new tracking system there. But apparently they don't want to tell people about it. And when people, like me, write on it and ask questions about it on meta threads, and about similar things, and want to know why or what's up with this or that and how is it going to work, it would be nice if ya told the users--well, then they are blocked from talking about it, or anything else on the site.

So that's top secret, ok? And beware you're hearing it from a dangerous agent provocateur, me.

Solution: Stop commenting.

Be happy you have a choice on that; I don't.

Oh miguelito, thank you so much for coming by to drop that link!

It's much more interesting to me than even you suspected, beyond the forum meta thing that has always interested me. It suggests some answers to some mysteries.

First, when I clicked on it, as someone who has signed up with Discus, I am already logged in and ready to go, it offers me an "add a comment" box with my name already on it. Also, they have the "edit profile" link and the "like" buttons that are missing from the TPM installation of Discus.

Notice too that there is--ta da---an introduction to the new system by McClatchy with INSTRUCTIONS, something TPM has never had an interest in posting with any of the three software changes I saw the site go through. Interesting also in those instructions, it says avatars won't migrate from their old system and that if users want one, they will have to upload it from the Facebook Discus or Twitter account that they log in with. Meanwhile, over at TPM, both Josh Marshall and Kouroush told people having trouble with avatars that they are working on figuring out how come it's not working for everyone and sort of blamed it on Discus. However, they chose not to enable log-in to TPM from Discus.

I now suspect because they chose not to allow that (Discus log in to TPM,) but only use Twitter, Google, Facebook and Yahoo, and now OpenID, that one really can't use the full Discus system as intended, hence they don't want to tell people about what it does and their dislike of me telling people about it and asking questions about it?

As I said above, they seem very interested in making sure everyone logs in, so much so that there seems to be some financial importance to that.

But on the bigger meta level, this feature at your link that was most interesting to me: McClatchy has chosen to turn on a "subscribe to this thread" function for their users,apparently they care that their readers should be able to carry on a conversation on topic over time, fancy that. Not just the 24 hour news cycle and then throw it all away.

Hey stilli,

You probably should have resisted coming to the party, even as late as you did, because you never know, you could be indicted as an alleged co-conspirator. (The evidence of the old thread on the old system is still there, I ain't gonna link to it here, it might get deleted.).

As to your other suppositions, things are looking clearer to me, see my reply to miguelito above. More and more it looks like a case of me advancing what they wish to remain silent about, like I was asking troublesome questions that they don't want users thinking about. That goes along with a seeming preference for a new audience--new people don't know what was there before so they won't be whining about not having it. (Theoretically on that last point, that is, bcause basically every frigging other forum has a lot of features and new users are not likely going to be neophytes to commenting on the net.)

It's the way they go about that that I find disturbing, not their choice of doing it, I'm a big one for agreeing that nobody is owed freedom of speech on someone else's website. But why not send the person an email asking them to shut up about it first? Or actually have the bravery to come out in public and say it? Why always the mystery? It's so Machiavellian looking, or even Straussian.  It's always been like that in my experience. Everyone there (except Al Shaw, and he seems to have been silenced on this one) has either seemed to loathe spending time explaining to readers how to use the site, or worse actively wants to keep it a secret. So strange, almost loony, for a site interested in making transparent the workings of journalism, government and political groups and parties is not so interested in doing that themselves about what they are doing.

I used to think it was dropping the ball, I do less and less. I think they have business priorities and also have plans for the way they want to influence the national politic, but that they don't want to be honest with their users about them. And once again, that's their right, but they also shouldn't necessarily expect respect for proceeding that way.

I do like the closet full of old shoes metaphor. But I can take it further and say he's no Imelda Marcos.   He did ask if people would come back if he put reader blog functions back in. Then I basically said (in a comment now removed,) well, if you'd tell people what you're gonna have in the meantime, maybe they can answer more honestly about that. He used that to say it was an argument in favor of getting rid of reader blogs in some kind of strange explanation I didn't understand. Always mysteries. It does look to me now though that the activity level is right back up where he'd like it, and as for the Cafe, it can be used indefinitely for the friends to post as op-ed columnists without much trouble, without much attention needed (as long as they don't mind glitches like the page saying there are zero comments on their threads, that is.)

thank you, Flav, what a nice thing for you to do, to dig up this old thread and say that.

Just saw now.