Oh yeah, Good Morning, Vietnam.

Adrian Cronauer: [impersonating an Intelligence Officer] We've realized that we're having a very difficult time finding the enemy. It isn't easy to find a Vietnamese man named "Charlie." They're all named Nguyen, or Tran, or...
Adrian Cronauer: [as himself] Well, how are you going about it?
Adrian Cronauer: [as Intel Officer] Well, we walk up to someone and say, 'Are you the enemy? And, if they say yes, then we shoot them."

My understanding is that George W. Bush has only ever seen the Pentagon-approved cut of the film where Robin Williams gets court-martialed and executed, Bruno Kirby spends his post-war years headlining in Vegas and J.T. Walsh becomes Secretary of Defense.

-=Logan
Research, facts, a Republican needs not these things

My general assumption is that if the user account is based on the name of a real public figure, there's a chance (although not 100%) that it could be a sock puppet

Possibly a slight chance, but most of us are who we say we are.  Otherwise, who would we be?

(I used that argument in one of my debates. Worked like a charm.)

Alyson Hannigan?

But if I did I feel like the Board of Directors would listen to what I had to say about it and decide if my opinion has merit and then rule on it in an open, transparent manner. I hate that.

I've been suggesting  ideas like blocking and section pages since day one.  I've also popped in with other ideas, but since I have zero (I count the money i threw down at day one as negligible) financial interest in this site, I'm not particularly miffed that its taken 1+ years or so to evolve into anything but just-another-blog-site. Y'all want to drive traffic here, but...this is not progress.

I don't have personal vendettas against anyone here--the discussion is civil, and the people who run this place are friendly, but c'mon dude--its been long enough to make cosmetic changes that could actually improve the user experience.  Your sarcasm and sincerity are both noted.  However, I feel the folks who "run" this place are not meeting the original "goal" of making this a discussion website that properly separates topics.  Its become more of a discussion blog for a couple dozen folks--and I don't have anything against skeeter1, but the whole "what's your favorite color?" angle to "stories" is a bit grating---we have diaries for that exact purpose, but you may have noticed that the current choice of "stories" renders the difference between "diary" and "story" non-existent.

You are a good writer and a reasonable person.   Wanting to break from the so called "top-down, eccentric, possibly psychotic dictatorship" is all well and good, but this site needs to put its money (not mine, of course) where its "mission" is--to provoke discussion with a clear motive.   Otherwise, its just a blog that I can't filter.  Shit, I can ignore people on fark and digg.  I can also surf those sites by topic--tags are nice, but they don't fulfill me.  

I hate to play the old-skool card on you, but I was here from day one. I pitched my ideas, I participated, and even though I'm not prolific, I read this site every day I'm online (along with plastic, wonkette, fark, digg, slashdot, kol, and about 25 others). I'm bummed that it hasn't evolved. I had great expectations for this place, even opened up my heart to scoop-code.  The lack of end-user-experience progress and the bogging down in legalese is disheartening--particularly since I've been beating the same drum for the entire life of the site.  

Your loyalty to this project is admirable, but blind dedication without honest appraisal is dangerous.  Vote Obama!

Although I'm really not sure what the date you joined TnT has to do with anything.  Speaking from my own perspective, I've been in favor of sections almost from day one and I may have had a few misgivings over the wrangling over legal issues myself ... BUT.  I think it all boils down to we all do what we can to support the site.  Some of us serve on the Board.  Some of us serve as editors.  Some of us contribute stories.  Some of us discuss the stories once they're posted.  Some of us sprinkle a little sugar into the TnT treasury.  And some of us work on site development and improvements with technical knowhow (better known as programming skillz).

My contributions to date have been financial contributions, stories and commentary.  I have no programming skills and I will not serve on the board and would rather not serve as an editor.  The programming for the site is done by one person that I'm aware of and I'm confident as soon as he gets around to it, we'll have sections and, perhaps, the ability to block users.  I will step up here to defend skeeter1 and his "what's your favorite color" stories.  The way I understand it, we inherited a diary function when we adopted scoop.  There never has been a hard and fast rule on what goes into a diary item and what constitutes a valid story on TnT.  For the most part, TnT members probably will come up with their own definition of what a story is apart from what a diary entry should be.  As far as I'm concerned we should never get to the point where there is a prescribed TnT story format.  Skeeter1's stories may not appeal to everyone as story items but, they do gather a lot of commentary (more so than some of what you might label a real story) and they aren't that dissimilar from some of the stories Plastic has run in the past on food, beverages, pasttime activities, etc.  In my mind, they amount to community builders as opposed to discussion and debate items.

Illegitimi non carborundum.

Although I'm really not sure what the date you joined TnT has to do with anything.

It matters to me that I've been advocating section pages and an easy way to surf through topics and stories for 20+ months, yet there is still no way of discerning which is what.

The way I understand it, we inherited a diary function when we adopted scoop.

Yeah, and "diaries" (1st person based with personal anecdotes as writeup and comments) should be separate from "stories" (general periodical topics based on hard research, facts, stats, and "sources") .  

For the most part, TnT members probably will come up with their own definition of what a story is apart from what a diary entry should be.

Without a mechanism to promote diary stories to front page topics, the difference is useless.

I've looked into scoopcode.  The "topic" sections we've agreed to (sports, legal, etc. et al) could be merged into that top nav bar in about 6 minutes, or 60.  Does that take 2 years? I think $100 for an hour of site-coding is worth more than $100 for an hour of legal advice.

I'm not here to bash skeeter1--his discussions do attract comments, which is nice--but trying to surf through "Name a VP!" (currently in diary) and "what candy do you like? I like X!" (currently in top stories)  is not conducive to signing up new users who (like me) expect to filter by topic.  Tags aren't good enough.  

yeah, I'm being an asshole.  Tough love isn't a bad thing.

I've looked into scoopcode.  The "topic" sections we've agreed to (sports, legal, etc. et al) could be merged into that top nav bar in about 6 minutes, or 60.  Does that take 2 years? I think $100 for an hour of site-coding is worth more than $100 for an hour of legal advice.

Send me your patch!

Skeeter1's stories may not appeal to everyone as story items but, they do gather a lot of commentary (more so than some of what you might label a real story) and they aren't that dissimilar from some of the stories Plastic has run in the past on food, beverages, pasttime activities, etc.

And if you have a problem with skeeter1's submitted stories you are always free to vote -1 on them and submit one of your own. The voting function is used so that if the editors perceive there is general lack of interest in a story it does not get run. Do you vote on candidate stories? I'm not sure.

All I know is that by not voting on something, or not commenting on a story you hate so that people have a better idea of what folks want, and then complaining when it gets accepted is kind of like getting so drunk on election day that you don't vote yet loudly complain for the next four years about the stupidity of the majority of the electorate.

The above reply was not directed at MB, just at people in general who don't vote or participate in the moderation process and then complain about stuff.

The priority should be a developer. This site doesn't need a lawyer as badly as it needs a technical tweak.

To pay a developer we need a corporate structure and we need more donations. Registering as a non-profit puts us closer to both those goals. This site has been in a Catch22 position from day 1 - we needed to get more people to increase the odds we'd get volunteer developers to improve the site and to get more people writing stories. We needed more people writing stories and volunteer developers to get more people. We needed to register as a non-profit to get more people to donate money. We needed money to pay for a lawyer so we could register as a non-profit. The BoD decided (based on their own discussions as well as feedback from the community - there were a number of non-board members who commented that they thought registering as a non-profit should be a priority) that registering as a non-profit should be a priority. We have also had some development during that time, and the BoD has worked to make development more accessible so that if we do get more people willing to work on the code it will be easier for them to do. Looking back, I'm not sure what could have been done differently, unless some mysterious benefactor gave us $10 grand in startup money or something.

Yes. I don't really care. His features meet my current needs. This site, not as much as I hoped.

I'm just puzzled by this attitude. If this site doesn't meet your needs, you have the ability to fix that. You have done the right things so far - your ideas are on the list of development priorities and they will eventually be implemented when resources permit. If that isn't happening fast enough, donate some money towards hiring a developer, or learn to code Scoop yourself and implement the features. If plastic meets your needs and you are happy with the possibility that the site (and everything you put into it) will just drop out of existence at the blink of an eye, then so be it, I guess, but if that's the case I'm not sure what you ever saw in TnT anyway.

if that's the case I'm not sure what you ever saw in TnT anyway.

I saw the potential to merge the intelligence of Plastic with the fun of fark and gawker/wonkette/digg, by way of sorting/filtering/blocking options that nearly every website has.  Like I said, I've been requesting fairly basic interface tweaks for a while now--y'all like to talk about "new users"--what do you think they want when they visit?  To be forced to surf several pages and read every comment, or the ability to choose what topic and whose posts they view or ignore?